Yes. But its funny you mention that, after Beat the Dealer came out over the years I'm told by vegas people it has become harder and harder to count cards and the beat the casino. Markets change and edges get closed out not matter what the TA selling gurus try to tell you
many "traders" write books, do trading advisories and "mentor", often because that is the only way they can make $$$. And they often just regurgitate candlestick, TA and a lot of other stuff, but try to claim they have a different way to spin it.
one thing was, the casinos greatly increased the number of decks in play at once, making things like card counting a lot less useful.
I dont preach that money management or 'credit crisis' is more important. I'm debating whether there are edges in TA as typically taught in popular books. As far as my own approach goes, you seem confused, I do fundamental global macro trading. But also ES swing trading based on quantifiable edges derived from historical studies not tales about japanese rice traders who are supposed to be so wise, nor 1950's books that are supposed to be timeless
Markets do change, we can't alter that. We can adjust our money/trade management strategies though. Recently we see a lot of stop hunting going on, we can't change that, but we can adjust. If I see a bullish signal that can give me around 50 pts, then I can afford to lose 9 x 5 pts & get a win on 10th r/t to breakeven, I can up the size on 5th r/t, I can widen the stop a bit. Adjust to a changing ebb & flow. It's not about any given entry signal, it's about management.
I think we can agree that, ALONE, trading stuff taught in books will NOT produce consistent results. Then again, if someone is dumb enough to believe that all they have to do is look for a few specific candle patterns to form and then buy or sell without doing any kind of mkt study, then they DESERVE to get burned.
IMHO If you do not believe that cadle charts are usefull than you do not believe that price action is usefull, they are one in the same. As I said before, a candle is a visual representation of raw (not derived data) of an event that ACTUALLY OCCURED. It can not be said that candles have no value unless you believe that price (and price action) has no value. If you believe that, thats totally legitimate, but thats a whole nother can of worms
that is not what is being discussed here, however. people try to READ candlestick patterns that are previously defined and widely followed, and assume they are useful, that is very different than pure price action. Candlesticks WITHOUT patterns is pure data, just like OHLC bars.