Of course many lose money because the majority just want simplist rule whereas all lie in the details. For example for symetrical triangle if you don't wait for the apex to be in the 3rd section it is still doubtful. Trading especially daytrading needs to focus on details if you don't want to, be rather an investor than a speculator.
symmetrical triangles do not indicate which direction it will go, only a shrinking price range. ascending triangles are my favorite pattern, been seeing lots of them the past couple months.
The way to play the failures and the "real" moves can really put you in the clover. Symmetric pennant is a sure thing for making money. If there are failures before the "real thing", play each of those too. By getting to place where you can do the retrace successfully, you can a;so manage the BO. If you can manage the BO, then you can do the "failure to BO" and it's retrace too. All this requires is a sucession of homework assignments to see the whole thing as an unfolding tree of possibilities. Except the tree is just a sequence with alternatives all given to you by simple indicators. You can be passive and not figure this stuff out or you can get yourself into a neat groove. Oh, to work up to the symmetric pennant do the flat top and flat bottom as a arm up drill. When you have al three in your quiver you are ready for almost any lateral channel ending.
Jack, I thought i was finally breaking through and getting an understanding of your posts (you must know by now that they read somewhat ethereal and esoteric), but I must admit that this: really reads like Nostradamus!
I made a mistype: I rather have typed if the apex is in the 3rd section it is doubtful. I said a trick known by some pattern traders who trade triangle intensively and that is not known by most novices (and surely less novices). Divide the triangle in 3 equal parts if the apex (the "nose") is not within the second section the signal is doubtful. As for myself I don't use the 1/3 ratio which is an approximation but directly theorical values from my model to calculate this crucial middle zone and you can see (look at picture below) that it conducts to agree with the rule of thumb above from traditional technicians : http://harrytrader.membres.jexiste.org/guide/galleries/triangle_breakout.html So in fact I don't even need really to draw the triangle so as to be able to apply the 1/3 rule since I know the absolute values of the dangerous zone of false signals. Because if you ignore that if trading triangle is great there are many false signals (the majority of raw signals are false) then I just learn it to you and so if you trade them like perfect triangles that exist often in books but not in reality you will have great deceptions . There are some other rules pattern traders use as for me I don't need them because all these rules try in fact to estimate this dangerous zone I can calculate directly so I don't have to care about these rules except for visual confirmation or aesthetic . I am incapable of being as smart as the traditional pattern traders for applying their fuzzy rules : it's an art which requires much training. I prefer scientific approach if I can a few years ago I couldn't so I didn't use pattern trading but classical indicators derived from moving averages because as I said It was above my capability to do pattern trading and avoid false signals.