Perhaps random within certain bounds. If market prices were completely random, then you would see jumps from $1 one day to $1000 the next day and back down to $5 the next. Real market prices are only bounded on the upside by fear/greed, expectation, hopes, wants etc., and $0 on the downside of course.
here I found an excel to generate charts yourself: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=6326916 Take the "updated coin toss..." excel
You want more than just that. You want to know the entry signal rules, trade management rules, date and time of it, name of trading instruments. Reason is not just for verification but to see if there is any correlation to what you understand about TA and trading itself. For example, there was a guy that showed up at TradersLaboratory with verified proof that a particular Japanese Candlestick pattern doesn't work (his results were 43% reliability). At first he wouldn't cough up his trade management rules but eventually he did. He was using some kind'uv of ridiculous risk/reward and if the trade in Emini ES futures became profitable and reached +8 points in the profit without reaching his 10 point target...he did not adjust his initial stop loss into a profitable trail stop. Simply, when it retraced, 15% of the time it hit the initial stop loss protection. Someone made an adjustment in his trade management rules so that trades that had reached +8 points in the profit at worst they could do on a retracement is to be hit at +2 point profits instead of at a loss. The reliability changed from 43% to 58%. There was further adjustments via removing trading periods like the FOMC Announcement (1 hour window) and the last 15 minutes of the trading session...reliability change from 58% to 65%. My point is this, anybody can show that something doesn't work. Yet, find out what the trade management rules were, data and time of the trade signals then make appropriate changes in the trade rules, switch trading instruments if needed (this gets into diversification) and so on...the reliability and other stats will change...sometimes dramatically. Further, if the trader is a discretionary trader or uses position size management or uses risk management...even a 50% reliability can have its profits doubled or tripled...anything more than that not likely. The above is exactly why two discretionary traders using the same trade method have different trading results as shown in many trade journals here involving someone sharing their trade method. Simply, each trader applies the same method...differently. Some bashers call this art instead of science. So what...the goal is to be profitable and anyone that does not know how to adapt when market conditions change to minimize drawdowns...should not be trading let alone trying to prove if something works or does not work. I'm not saying if you make an adjustment that the results will always be beneficial because I've seen adjustments and the results became worse. As in the example of the original 43%, there was an adjustment made in the risk/reward and included trading that FOMC period along with trading the last 15 mins of each trading day...the results worsen from 43% to 35%. Thus, results can easily change loss to profit or profit to loss just by changing the trade management rules. Anyways, getting back to that guy testing that one particular Japanese Candlestick pattern. His response was that the 43% was standard and represents what a typical trader would do along with saying profitable traders would not have adapted when trading conditions change. That's my point, profitable traders and losing traders are different. Profitable traders recognize that markets have change and will make changes while losing traders do not until its too late because of another key element that's can not be backtested... Trade Experience (one trader has it and the other trader does not have it). The fact that trade experience can not be backtested along with the fact there are other aspects of trading that can not be backtested...academia is only able to test a few pieces of the puzzle or a few chapters out of a book because they need to keep their testing as simple as possible even if it means its not the way a profitable trader applies the TA. The above is something I myself have discover in conversations with many in the academia that have tested and publish their results...you can not backtest how a discretionary profitable trader reacts to the markets. In contrast, you can backtest a trade method based upon codes (program/computer).
Traders who say that TA does not work, maybe don't know how to use TA. So does TA not work? Or do people don't know how to use TA? I think the second question is most of the time the one that is correct.
It's the absence of evidence, ancedotal and statistical in culture and on message boards which suggests that these day traders with secret edges who profit for decades are mythical. Why aren't Paul Tudor Jones and Jim Dalton still day trading the S&P 500?