Sure, anyone who tries to apply some cookie cutter TA pattern without understanding the building blocks of the pattern is destined to find inconsistency in TA. Context is key to determining the validity of a 'pattern' IMO. That being said, the markets repeat the same patterns over and over and over across all different time frames. It's just a matter of breaking price down (I use volume in combination) and seeing the way it flows. Then, developing an approach to capture the price gyrations.
Exactly. There is no law against noobs writing drivel but it is very repetitive at ET. The so-called herd ipso facto is propelling price up when price direction is up and propelling price down when price direction is down. The task for the amateur trader is to get on board. Exploit the intraday gyrations (eg CL). Buy the upswings, sell the downswings. Do the hard work, study, preparation and get hold of a sound methodology.
yup, once people realize the edge is with longer term trading they will realize. Daytrading is a zero-sum game, thus a pipedream for most people. Just like in poker. Because of that, learning people to daytrade for a living is like learning people to poker for a living, almost despicable. I will say this, the edge provided by buy and hold is not zero-sum. It's a complicated capital formation structure thats adds value, in that its not a zero-sum game. The market has an edge.
this chart about the flash crash suggest something about the cause of the flash crash, but I heard another more plausible explanation by nanex. That it had to do with disappearing liquidity by computers, just like in 1987. We have had 2 events in 23 years. These are just extreme events and does not means the stock markets themselves are a coin flip. For longer term trades there's a true edge.
If you want to rely on buy-and-hold returns then why not just buy some index and sit on it. There is no need to spend time analyzing the market. Most of us wouldn't survive on just buy-and-hold returns, therefore start looking into trading. People here are talking about the ability of a person finding an edge that doesn't die over time, not the obvious edge the equity market provides - which actually isn't an edge at all since everyone knows it.
Most people trade for the wrong reasons. They don't trade for money, but for excitement. Buy and hold is boring, even though theres a true edge in it. WHile the edge that daytrading provides is much like poker, a zero-sum game. In poker you have something called big winners. Now, I don't deny that in daytrading you will have big winners to. But also alot of losers. Mind that I'm not trying to judge daytraders themselves, just the ones that are foolish to believe daytrading is not a zero-sum game. And the ones that get fooled by vendors. Just like in poker, if all people are aware what game they're playing, its game on.