Eighteen years of studying TA and almost that many years of trading, I have come to the conclusion that 98% of it is trash. The 2% I have retained I would never trade without, but only when used in combination with each other. Knowing patterns are helpful, and I'm not talking silly 3 bar candlestick patterns. Go to the weekly and monthly charts. I used to laugh at tape readers. I think now it has a lot of merit because doing it myself has improved my trading.
Would you mind sharing what 2% you find valuable? Use higher time frames and support resistance only ?? Thanks Blox
Support and resistance is huge. You are correct. I found internal trend lines to be more powerful than the normal ones that everybody and their mother plots. Fibonacci projections are excellent in the Forex market. I use it in conjunction with Fib retracements. If it retraces back 38.2%, my target is the 138.2% projection (indicating a strong market). A 50% retrace, I use the 100% projection (a simple measured move). A 61.8% retracement, I am on the lookout for a failure swing. All this is subject to how support and resistance points look in history. I do find RSI to be useful, but requires looking at the ranges and what is considered bearish and what is bullish. I don't use it alone but in conjunction with Connie Brown's CMB composite. Those two together are all I need for momentum oscillators. Moving averages are good, but I plot both simple and exponential. Some markets seem to be in turn with one more than the other. Probably the one I might get ridiculed for, but I don't care, and that is Gann fans. Not just one placed, but two, with intersection points. It took me a long time before I learned how to place them. When a security trades near an intersecting point and finds support/resistance, and the other analysis looks favorable, I call it my Golden Trade. It's almost a sure win. I find it rarely breaking through the intersection point, and if it does, it will retreat back. I have a couple of proprietary things I use for price and time which I worked with a signal engineer to develop the code for, but I use them for confirmation only.
I find major, obvious support & resistance can be excellent for fading false breaks, they can give you the most perfect entries. By obvious I mean the levels that have been tested at least three or more times and the world and his wife are looking at on the higher time frames. Get confirmation from strong volume and be prepared for the price to snap back rapidly leaving a long tail.
Besides, the chart does not show what you need to look for. The last charts of TE show it all, besides the last one with Hmmmmm.
TE's charts show an interpretation of price action since that is all a time or tick based chart can do and just like anything that is "open to interpretation" there is a greater margin for error. TE has not explained anything. I understand what he is "eluding" to simply because, as a chartist, it is hard not to understand it. But he eludes to everything he says, he never directly answers anything. As a teacher, if I had taught my students in riddles, without ever giving them the specific direction to what they thirsted for, I would not have kept my position very long and would have frustrated most in my classes. Why TE feels the need to ridicule direct questions without directly answering them is astonishing but understandable.
I presume that you were paid to be a teacher with some form of contract of employment. Whereas I suspect TE posts here for the fun of it and finds it all very amusing, but with some serious intention. In this life you get what you pay for.