Hey man, I have also cut back on my habit, but glad you're still in the forum! Mostly lurking these days, but trading more successfully...and at the risk of a beating, possibly because I studied the guy who is the subject of this thread.
Thanks. As for Brooks and his books, his (first) book is the only one I ever returned to Amazon for a refund. I commend you on your ability to wring any lemonade out of them rancid lemons, and some signal out of all that noise. You're a better man than I am.
If all of his accumulated hours studying price action were any good, he would be a hedge fund billionaire right now. Spending a lot of time studying useless information is a great way to die poor (unless you monetize your content to others).
Exactly, continually day after day spending time (studying useless information) on very short term moves ie intraday is a huge waste of resource. If you are going to spend hours doing TA analysis, it's more efficient imo to spend the time for moves which will last over several days rather than moves which may move several minutes or hours. But it seems, unfounded fear that overnight holding is negatively biased against the trader prevents many from that. Perhaps also greed, they want to see hard money added to their account every night rather than wait a week or more.
A different perspective is that 1) TA might have been useful in the 1950s-80s, when computing power was limited and the use of algo-based trading was unheard of 2) nowadays the smartest folk (comp sci + finance) tend to work at firms like Citadel or other HFT firms that specialize in capturing intra-day risk premia 3) none of these guys preaching TA provide robust subsequent returns analysis -- it is hocus pocus.
Agree with item1 'TA might have been useful in the 1950s-80s, when computing power was limited and the use of algo-based trading was unheard of', but I think some of the older hands on ET make a buck using Al Brooks 'technology' because of years of experience, but imo it's hard work, inefficient and feasting on crumbs. Not only that, one is probably better off a slave working in an office for the man than a slave at home in front of a monitor working for yourself. However if a trader's mindset is locked into daytrading using Al Brooks methods, it could be because they just don't know another way and don't wish to know.
This is completely untrue. Quite the opposite, with the machines the market is MORE predictable not less. After all, you can count on good ol' AI that it will be consistent.