Mystics of all stripes defend their assertations with the personal experience mantra. It holds no water--- and doubly so when stated by anonymous Internet personas using aliases.
All joking aside, it's ludicrous for the OP to continue to push this argument on those of us who are able to trade well. As if these "studies" will somehow resonate despite our own evidence to the contrary. I'm not really sure why he chooses to push this angle, it's quite puzzling. Much easier to just admit that, of the studies tested, some or many do not provide a statistical edge but by no means are these studies exhaustive. It's common sense, for those who trade, that there is virtually an unlimited number of inputs, combination of inputs etc etc that can be used to view and trade the mkts with. I guess if one was a writer or marketer, this might not be obvious.
You seem to have an open mind, Cornex--- read voodoo science by Robert Parks and judgement under uncertainty:heuristics and biases by kahneman, slovic & tversky You will understand the inherent logical issues in these pro objective TA claims. This is classic and well known material--- I'm surprised you don't see you have fallen into a trap.
Not everything has been tested, you are correct. You are also correct that that what has been tested fails to create a statistical edge. But as Niederhoffer says, it all boils down to whether or not the trend is your friend. In the stock market, at least, testing has proven that the trend is not your friend.
I trade ETFS and Futs, not stocks. Not that I at all agree with what you are saying below because I do not know for sure and haven't done the research MYSELF. But I'm glad you have your mind made up and it's quite ok if you do
There has been a lot of questions about our Price Drivers and just what they are and what makes them leading indicators, unlike the TA premise of "following price"---- This ET advertiser is on the right track when it comes to one of the prime Price Drivers--- check out the seminar for insight-- we dont' use this software, rather custom built, but the idea is identical--- http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=251930
I will look into NoDoji's suggestions. The 4 ticks profit shown by the system as tested would probably be lost to slippage. But at least this system is objective. Break of opening bar. I don't know how anyone could backtest a trendline because it is so subjective. Sometimes I can draw a trendline one way, and then look at the same chart 2 weeks later and draw trendlines a little differently. So I think Surfer is somewhat right about cloud shapes. Look, it's a dog..............