Going back to find who was the first, to lay eggs : ,,Blacksburg, Va. – In 1998, Shuhai Xiao and colleagues reported finding thousands of 600 million year old embryo microfossils in the Neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation, a fossil site near Weng'an, South China, (Xiao, S., Zhang, Y., and Knoll, A.H., 1998, "Three-dimensional preservation of algae and animal embryos in a Neoproterozoic phosphorite," Nature, v. 391). Within the egg cases they examined at that time, they discovered animals in the first stages of development – from a single cell to only a few dozen cells. "The cellular preservation is amazing," says Xiao, assistant professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech.'' source : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041104005307.htm So prior to that, there was only cells dividing/splinting into two, thus, although the chicken is multi billion cell organism , in some sense it was like that cell. Since one can't call the identical cell an egg, it was the ,,chicken'' who came first. Damn, as serious topic as the op's question. (nothing personal)
all eggs are not those of chickens chickens were not the first egg hatched creatures eggs preceed chickens. - there are two kinds of people. those who think there are two kinds of people, and those who don't. - which came first - the lobster or the tree?
I think TA is a tool that you can or can not use if it helps you trade. In regards to S and R, for example, say you are in a trade at R and it looks like R is not going to hold, you can then kill the trade BEFORE your stop is reached. After that you can look at a different instrument, say on it price has bounced off of S and is heading to R. While you were not able to get in near S, you could still go long and try to take a standard profit using a standard stop. There are so many ways to trade, find one that works for you. It takes time, hours on screen, developing a system based on patterns or price action. Determining your risk vs reward. Everyone's is different. Are you looking to scalp, swing trade, or are you a position trader. No one is going to spoon feed you like a baby. You could always create your own journal where you post your own trades and ask for help. Trading is not for everyone, find something you are good and passion about and do it. Problem is some people not saying you are one of those, can't find a way to trade and think no one is trading. Obviously, this is not true. Some people make tons of money like hedge funds that recently shorted the front month of oil. Just realize trading is a hard way to make easy money. If everyone could do it easy then no one would do any other job. There is a free system on ET based on JH' s strategies for being always in. You take profits when direction changes. I think it's very interesting. I am not saying its the holy grail, but maybe read the 100 pages and see if it helps you develop your own system.
What do you use instead then? Just sentiment that today it gos lower/higher? Or do you follow trends?
Resistance levels, vwap etc. all do work in the right situation and net consistent profits 80% of the time, which is all you can ask for. But at the highest levels of this stock game, you need to have more nuance to decipher live information - not only understanding the market but how investors and day traders react to the market. So it is technical analysis but it's only part of the equation that helps. To be honest I've found it easier than expected but am waiting for 6 months of consistent profit before really saying it works. All my losses so far have been me going rogue, based on a feeling, or generally some theory that had nothing to do with being supported by any technicals.