You are right when talking about time charts but natural support & resistance oscillations aren't random they are sequential.
When I see you drink a case of beer all at one time (and I do mean at one time), you open all 24 cans on one motion and you pour all 24 cans in your mouth at one time . . . I will concede you are correct. Until then . . . you are wrong. Another example . . . place an order to buy 100 #11 Sugar contracts and call your broker and argue with him that it is a single order and not to charge you per contract. With ticks you aren't referencing ticks across 2 rows because ticks are all broken down to their smallest parts. My rational database is in units (the markets natural parts) not ticks the unnatural creation of information providers. If you think that a single tick CAN'T be a single one lot trader then you definately haven't been in this business long enough to make any comments at all. It is a lot harder to hide when you are using volume charts because the "show only" IS volume. You are basing your opinions on what you have read not personal research. Mine is research. Next time you need surgery be sure to read a few books and walk the surgeon through the process while your under, OTAY!
Prof, I'm surely not going to argue my path is the only path, just making my point and thank you for the acknowledgement.
Common sense dictates that if you break trades down to their smallest parts (contracts or shares) and then track the movement (price stamp) of each individual contract or share you will see pure price movement. This is indisputable. This is simple physics. Next group the contracts or shares together in random size groups and you will see oscillations created based on that pure price movement. The larger the size of the group the slower the chart. The slower the chart the longer term of the oscillations. Now add a single indicator, of your choice, to mirror and help you confirm those support bottoms and resistance tops. Once you see price move with this pure movement it is easy to understand how you could utilize watching price move like this. I've taken this a few steps further so I can see the related strength associated with these moves as well. This is something you have to see to believe and to see consistently to trust. Me telling you this is meaningless. Take the time to construct a sample chart and prove it to yourself or don't and deny the possibility. Your choice.
For trading commodity and currency ETFs, I watch for set-ups based upon trend, COT data, and stochastics to line up with seasonal cycles. Then I use price action to time entries and set stops. Seasonal cycles are not perfect and do not have to match for me to enter a trade, but if they do, the trade has a higher probability of success. There are a number of places to obtain seasonal cycle data, however, I prefer MRCI.com. For instance, you may have noticed that oil prices tend to rise seasonally in the spring as they are currently: http://mrci.com/client/seapat/cl//clc012.pdf
You're perfectly correct Prof. I was just wondering how you arrived at your conclusion. Oh and jprad is perfectly correct too. Prof what you observe is correct in one dimension. Some good comments in this thread
Many years ago when I was in corporate my field was problem solving and there was only ONE way to begin to solve ANY problem. Start at the beginning. & Break all problems down to their smallest components. Starting anywhere but the beginning and you are doomed to failure from the start. Start without breaking down the problems to its smallest components and you are doomed. These are standard practices of problem solving which most people don't utilize in their trading which they should.
... and notwithstanding our painstaking research, sometimes we discover the serendipitous breakthrough that leads us to conclude what we thought was a sure starting point and a certain path, was but an illusion common among traders.