Golf and Tennis have not been constantly tested as having no market outperformance. TA has. I think the term is, "comparing apples to oranges."
The point is that there are a lot of other possible explanations for people who claim to outperform "as a TA practitioner." Many things. If there is another comparable fallacy similar to the TA being discussed, then these considerations would be just as relevant. People are in such a hurry to defend TA, that they seem to have little appetite to use things that would hold up under standard testing mechanisms. Thus the constant appeal to belief systems. Or anger. Anything but solid, credible, testable proof that would hold up to intense scrutiny. ProfLogic is the latest example. I issued a challenge to have a trading duel. He boldly accepted. I proposed terms. Then he disappeared.
RCan, Is it safe to assume you have actually traded technically at one point in your career and failed miserably??? For all the hot air that escapes you,I am sure you aware that the only way to really know if a technique works(or not) is to step into the ring and "get it on"... There is no shame in saying YOU could not trade profitably applying T.A..
The point is that if such things (Money management, portfolio management, interest, trade management, luck in leveraging a rising market, fees from running hedge funds/speaking fees/running an advisory, outright lying about the profitability) are equally relevant then they are a wash. Whatever other methodology (fallacious or not) one might use to trade in the market, such things would be available to the "bottom line" in a manner no more or less than would be the case for a practitioner of TA. This of course presumes that one does not use any sort of TA with respect to "such things" and this in fact may not be the case. For example an exit point (for a partial profit, a failed trade or a reversal protocol) may come about as a consequence of a particular "TA thing" as opposed to a predetermined exit based on some non-technical factor. lj