Seasonal patterns - TA Intermarket Analysis - TA Political cycles - FA/TA Interest Rate trends - TA Sector Strength - TA
It all comes down to definitions. The filed of TA and FA is much larger and includes many different styles and approaches. For example, the method Warren Buffett uses is vastly different from someone trading news, but they are both fundamental analysis. Same for TA - if I remember correctly, many of the early tape readers considered technical analysis as something unreliable but they really meant chart reading. Today we consider tape reading and chart reading technical analysis. Also chart reading can be indicator based or pattern based or whatever. I am 99% sure that your friend from T2W is using technical analysis for trading, to be more specific - he is basing his trading decisions on price movements (and possibly volume). He probably wanted to sound different and unique to generate more interest for his trading method. There is also a possibility that he is trading volatility (options), which is a bit different from directional trading. Also he may be trading pairs (arbitrage), but this is TA. He may be trading special situations, there are many ways to make money in the market. You should just ask him
Although perfect entries certainly cuts down on emotions, longer I am in trading, the less I believe where I get in makes much difference in long or intra day trading. It still comes down to how you manage the trade once you are in. Of course the more you know by being able to read price action, reading indicators gives one a better idea of whether your decision to be long or short was warranted. It is simply like anything, more experience you have in any field gives you more insight in taking more what the market will allow. I think Elliot wave is truly the toughest way to trade not knowing whether you are getting in on wave 3 or it is a counter wave of a bigger wave going the other way.
I am not sure what these people mean. To me FA has always been any data or information related to or affecting the company, country, or entity, behind the equity. So anything such as News, earnings, political cycles, seasonal considerations, weather, or any other type of information not directly related to the equity would be considered FA. TA to me is anything directly derived from the equity itself. This would include everything you could possibly derive from time and sales. So charts, volume, supply and demand levels, statistics, probabilities, and all manner of indicators would be TA. I think most of these people are using some form of TA but maybe not "Traditional" TA. For instance someone mentioned probabilities. You cannot calculate probabilities without looking at prior pricing data, thereby making the probabilities a derivative TA based on pricing. For example, if I told you XYZ was trading at $50 right now, what is the probability of it going up or going down? Without knowing where it has been the most accurate you can figure is 50/50 up/down. If I then told you that XYZ had been to the $50 mark a couple of times over the last year but had never been able to breach that level now you know it has a higher probability to go down. So if I am wrong and they are not using either of these then I have no idea what it could be they are using. Maybe they are calling Miss Cleo.
The icosahedron works very well for some people. I have heard of traders in big firms throwing it to decide on 1 Billion face value positions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice#Standard_variations There are all sorts of variations. The Zocchihedron is the best: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zocchihedron I think these are the best choices for people who do not understand that we live in a block universe with past present and future being one and the same thing and that the past is the proxy of the future. It is hard to know how to do that so they base decision on random information.
I would count that as TA since you have to have technical data to calculate any statistics. It would probably not be considered "Traditional" TA though.
If it is based on price series it's pure TA. From Investopedia: "Technical Analysis is a method of evaluating securities by analyzing statistics generated by market activity, such as past prices and volume."