I know several traders who trade from home and make money trading only TA, hence it cannot be 'crap'. Also forget all this stupid talk of 50/50 winners and losers and therefore letting trades run is the only way to make money- the market is not totally random and you can make money in many different ways (either with a high win rate and low R or a low win rate and a high R, or somewhere in between!). You do not need to let winners run or have x% win rate etc to be a success. You need a positive expectancy- ie. you must have an edge and make money over the long run. That is all that matters.
The thread opener appears to know little about markets. Obviously successful amateurs as well as all serious players in the markets do not mind how many other fools there are with ignorant or misguided views. While fundamental analysis will always have a role, technical analysis is 'king' from institutions using algorithms and various formulae through to lesser players with their own sets of technical rules. At the level of ET members it is very important to know technically the market you are playing in. Know the metrics - know the hard data of your market. The central process for an amateur to set about making himself or herself rich from trading is to use the daily price gyrations of a liquid and volatile market (eg CL) to take cumulative net gains from the intraday sequential swings. If I take CL, Monday to Friday, April 25-29 (2011) the number of swings (minimum span 40 points) by the mean average of the maximum width of each swing, per day, were 8x84, 4x98, 13x84, 13x87 and 7x61. Enough points being made available weekly to turn yourself into Croesus!
Really? Good for you....what does the edge involve? Because if it involves ANYTHING outside of company fundamental analysis, then you are using TA, just fyi.
Your facts are wrong, which leads you to an incorrect conclusion. Like I said, keep working harder champ, you may get there some day.
LOL. You know there is more than fundamental and technical. This edge is so reliable and certainly enough out-of-the-box i would be able to teach anybody how to become consistenly profitable with it. Which unfortunately with TA is impossible, because it doesn't work In fact, I wonder why I haven't discovered and applied this edge before. It is so simple yet so powerful. It opened my eyes. Keep dreaming
As a note of clarification: When I state that TA doesn't work, I am talking about chart readers who make real time decisions from price charts provided by e signal, trade station etc or Heaven Forbid- the chart packages that are provided by FX dealers. I couldn't believe my eyes when I witnessed a major FX dealer pushing trading on the chart at a trading expo! No wonder the dealers are such big business, hindsight bias and the chart delusion is their EDGE!! Surf
I'll agree with you in regards to the FX dealers and their packages, they are worse than carnival barkers. The rest of your statement is taken from a combination of points of gross inexperience and a propensity & career path to turn a blind eye on the possibilities of using different forms of TA. That being said, your opinions in regards to TA in general are worthless based on your own statements of why you are participating in this forum. You've already gone from; all TA is worthless, to TA works only in seeing what has happened in the past, to "I was a past member of the MTA" and now that only a few savants and your personal high brow friends that are able to extract a bit of profit from the charts using TA. Do you know what the word hypocrite means?
@Neenisti. Save the faulty logic, mistruths and schoolyard taunts for someplace else. You have the chance to prove the worth of your charts on your terms, we are waiting. When will the real time demonstration commence? If not now, why not? Surf
PS. I have started the twitter follower base for your TA demonstration by tweeting this thread to my 1000 plus followers. Thank me later,