The theory is true in the long term. In the short term, there are pockets of predictability due to luck or some skill. Short-term can be 20 or 30 years. All traders and investor lose their wealth at some point due to the randomness. Getting out of the market when hitting target wealth is the key objective. The stock market is a little different due to constant financing by the central bank but there are several examples worldwide of total losses. Markets are meat grinders. No one escapes in the long term. In the short term, some become rich.
The point was that at any point in time someone could dump an order at the market for reasons that have nothing to do with what's going on in a <= 5-minute chart. I believe that's what happened leading up to the Flash Crash. So, in essence, trying to make a meaning out of every single tick or spike in one of the most liquid markets in the world is a futile exercise and I would say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. Well, you can't short because I'm dumping at market randomly without looking at your 5-minute chart. And by the time of the spike down, you won't know if it's a PB or the initiation of a new move lower. So, you're at a loss for which decision to make. Besides, by the time you made up your mind, price likely moved already. Buddy. If every tick and spike was predictable and tradeable, you wouldn't be averaging down on entry on micro contracts.
I know an investor which got started around the same time QE started and literally became rich throughout the last decade. I later saw a webinar with a guy utilizing the exact same strategy which got hammered starting out a few years prior. Same strategy, different market environment, different outcome. The QE guy thinks he's an investing genius. The webinar guy became a trader. Just by chance, there's always someone who's killing it in the markets. And of course, everyone who's making money in the markets are highly skilled while those who lose are simply out of luck. LOL.
Prices are most affected by events around the globe and they react to those events in economic terms. You can definitely find a pattern of rising and falling in a long term overview of things but in short term mostly it is believed that the movement can be random.
Malcolm Gladwell the author of Outliers and Blink, said the month you were born has more to do with success in sports than talent; the year you were born has more to do with wealth and successes in life than IQ, hard work.... I said where you were born who you were born to have more to do with wealth than smart or hard work, and we don't get to choose either. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter whether it is luck, skills or the market as long as we get there.
ES / MES right now. This is what I mean by random flow. It's just random back and forth. But if anyone can predict the next tick or bar - let's hear it... And no - after the fact doesn't count... Because after the fact it will be an obvious consolidation before continuation lower. Or it will be an obvious consolidation / higher low before moving higher...
My prediction is that ES will recover to at least 4820 today and close green going into the long weekend. But I have no illusions about predicting the next random tick.