Identifying the cause of a trend can help a trade intuitively assess the sustainability of the trend. Combine it with a technical/ price action set-up, and you've got a triple threat trade. I also feel that having a grasp on the fundamentals of a trend can enable one to hold on to their position rather than letting greed instigate early profit taking.
And how can you objectively test the effectiveness of this intuitive method? You can't. Systematic, mechanic trend-followers intentionally disregard reasons and causes for a price breakout and simply bet on that it will continue in the initial direction. They'll be wrong often, for a small loss. And every once in a while they hit a home run.
Most of TA is about following trends without having a clue what causes them. Measuring something and understanding what causes it are two different things.
You can create a macro model or do a top down apporach. I do agree that fundamentals become pretty useless if one focuses on short term time frames though. So if your holding periods are a few days fundamentals wil probably be of no use.
Not sure what that means... You can't test, prove or disprove 'intuitive' whatever. It can change with the blowing wind...
With all due respect Mr. Covel... Trend following works as proven by many, but so do many other things. Soros has outperformed all trend followers and that's just one example. Do they trade intuitively, possibly, but they sure know their fundamentals and macroeconomics.