As for timeframes, I have to agree with MeanVelocity. When you start analyzing angulars and extensions you begin to see that higher timeframes display much "heavier" patterns than lower timeframes which can be pushed around by 1 participant vs "a market". Wilder was another that had some excellent predictions. Gould was right on par with Gann (who correlate closely with Fibbonacci) when using angles. You CAN predict where large baskets of orders will be months in advance as well.
I know that as we switch to smaller and smaller time frames, the "noise" becomes bigger, but it is also true that the market is fractal in nature, the same exact technical patterns are at work on every time frame, from the 1 min chart to the yearly chart. But you are right, a descending triangle or a head and shoulders formation for example are more meaningful on a daily chart than on the 1 min chart. Sure, if you have a flux capacitor and a source of energy that can deliver 1.21 gigawatts anything is possible... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cYgRnfFDA Just kidding
The market is kind of odd in that it maintains a varying predictability horizon. Sometimes the market is highly predictable and you can accurately predict months out, and sometimes the market is literally a coin flip looking at a couple days or a couple weeks off. That is a fact! The market isn't always predictable. Quite a few coin flip(No trade zone) situations exist. I prefer bear markets and high volatility... Markets maintain much higher consistent short term predictability. Drifty bull markets get a bit coin flippy.
Just like some lottery players have been able to predict the lottery numbers with a high degree of accuracy.
Then trade the Forex market, unlike the stock market there is ALWAYS one or more currency pairs in a serious downtrend mood.
I do trade Forex, but there is a few reasons it's inferior to equities. 1. No proper tick charts. Currency futures are not liquid enough. 2. Forex has huge spike candles for some reason. 3. Volatility across all currencies is kinda dead right now, and volatility doesn't increase during currency downtrends. I don't like how unregulated Forex is. I will trust it when it becomes transparent and is brought onto the exchanges. There is some price action which still indicates that large players with tens to hundreds of billions artificially shape the patterns like Salomon and others did back in the late 1900's. They say it's a super liquid market, but it still trades like it's a thin market... Which is strange!
Wow that was a retarded question! I am talking about real volatility... The kind of volatility that is correlated with higher cortisol levels in traders globally. (Stress hormone levels.) The more fear and stress asset managers, fund managers, etc are feeling... The more predictable the market. Without contigen people are not as easily emotionally compromised by price movement... For example, the market from 2007 through 2009 was highly predictable in the short term with consistency. Unpredictable periods are the low volatility periods like the first few months of 2012. There is a reason why traders go back to sleep if they wake up and see little price movement in the first half hour... Not worth trading! Unpredictable, and high spread/commission handicap relative to profit potential on trades.
With all due respect MeanVelocity, there is no such thing as a "highly predictable period" and "unpredictable" periods, you either have a profitable trading system or you don't... period (no pun intended).