Price action only versus the correct indicators is akin to sailing by the moon & stars versus sailing with a map, compass and gps unit. The correct chart indicators lead price, not lag price. They predict where price will go next... more often than not. The pervasive myth that indicators "don't work" is merely perpetuated by those who simply don't know how to use them correctly. No different than handing a world-class assault rifle disassembled in pieces to some jungle tribe in south america with no prior human contact. You can give them a case of weapons in parts, they would end up discarding it all for their rock head clubs and spears out of sheer ignorance to the facts.
No indicator makes predictions of any kind. Only fortune tellers make predictions. Would you mind showing us a chart with a leading indicator that predicts price? (You can then start packing for your Nobel Prize. People in Sweden will be wating for you).
============== Logicman -Trend Lets define price action [PA]; as precise ...-''price action only''.Not that profitable trading requires that exat precision. TA is defined '' ..primarily price, vol;ume...'' wikipedia, ,most others; so big difference between PA & TA. Lazy traders will do much worse than traders that work72 hours a week+/. over time. Goldman Sachs maybe even considers 72 hours a week lazy but i wouldnt.................................
some indicators predict what price is probable to do next... more often than not that's no different than all of the price-action traders who insist on buying higher low - higher high or selling lower high - lower low patterns that v-turn reverse on a dime and wipe them out. there is a lot more to trading "price" than meets the eye... and a lot more to key chart tools than most traders ever figure out
The only real point is that the bottom line is in fact the bottom line. Can TA predict the future ? Hell no. Of course not. Is "price action" the ultimate strategy for manual day trading and scalping ? No. There is so much automated spoofing, order crossing, quote stuffing, and order queue gaming going on these days that I personally doubt that it as a stand-alone strategy is the 'be all to end all' as it were. The fact of the matter is that you need some sort of reliable reference to base your decisions on. Could be a chart, could be 'price action', could be the behavior of highly correlated analog instruments in the market. (like scalping crude based upon currency and equity market price action) That reference point is really a matter of opinion - as long as whatever you're doing is consistent then the genus and species of your reference point is really not germane. My final point is that each market participant usually has a different holding timeframe - or at the very least it is a certainty that there exists a very broad spectrum of holding timeframes for the participants in any market. That means that no one strategy, no singular technical study, is universally appropriate.
In all seriousness, there are a lot of successful traders out there who use various chart tools for aid in success. When I first got started in 1999 - 2000, the rage then for everyone was custom indicators, stacked indicators, tweaked indicators. Later on it became in vogue to strip charts naked and try to read them bar-by-bar... or with a token indicator or two mixed in. Truth is, a mixture of both can make life easiest of all in this very tough, performance-based profession. I personally use some chart tools for forecasting which way next is probable, and I use price-action formations to determine entry & exit points. Purely naked charts are no easier to read or more fruitful in the end than charts with seven indicators stacked on top of one another. There can be a peaceful middle gound in between
If you look at 20 truly legitimate flat price directional day traders / scalpers and the systems they are using to make trade entry and trade exits, you can be assured that there will be 20 different variations on a theme. And the difference between them in terms of their respective strategies would likely be more varied than conventional wisdom might dictate. Any person who truly believes that there is only one legitimate way to trade a market (and furthermore it's their way) is delusional.
You could be "all wet" on all of this. Traders should focus on "correlation"... that is, "what USUALLY happens after a reference event". Example... "such-and-such has been in an up-trend. Then, dips to 200 day moving average and bounces... then follows through to retest the highs." The key is "bounce at 200 day, up-sloping, MA [presumed continuing uptrend]"... that's a "correlation"... one of the more reliable. So... you look for and trade "correlations" (there are actually quite a few). Some are highly reliable but occur with low frequency. Others occur more often... but while less reliable, are still tradable, risk-vs-reward. K.I.S.S.