If you are timing an entry , there is an error of understanding the purpose of entry.The outcome of any trade is not known , hence trading is about trading probabilities.The entry is merely at a good point ,it is not predictive .it has 50/50 chance of success. Money is made by letting profits on winning trades run,it is one or two huge winners which make winning traders profitable.
I think I might understand what you mean by "past charts". It's a cliche kinda like the random walk theory and efficient market idea that those who don't understand TA like to use to dismiss TA as being on a par with reading sheep entrails. TA is probably 80% current price movement and 20% look left or past charts reference. The most important information is taken from the last 2 or 3 bars and then TA views that in a bigger time context. If anything needs to be stressed about TA it is the current swing and last few bars. I'd have to agree that expecting repetition in lateral movement or patterns is an unworkable idea. Doesn't sound very "technical" to me. I'd put that idea in the bin along with thinking TA is running indicators through a back test. It doesn't come that easy! What would propose as a better way to determine the directional bias?
The biggest argument of all is that TA works to describe the past but is useless to predict the future. It's a hindsight tool to described what happened. This is what needs to be addressed. I suggested Live Swing Calls but all I got from the "Xspurt" was silence.
Special situations Price drivers and the book (stocks) is how directional bias is determined Your post demonstrates the classic TA deception. There is NO such thing as "current price movement". If you see it, it's already in the past and thi is why TA (as commonly used) is a joke. Understand what drives price ( its not volume, that's also the past) then you can start to develop working system to execute in real time with an edge.
This board is sick and tired of things like "you should have done this!" "but look how easy this was!" "did you see the ?" "I can't believe you didnt notice that!" "I caught the highs because of THIS" "Covered at the lows because of THAT" Give me a break. Little less history more clairvoyance and surely and rapidly, the doubters of TA will begin to believe or simply fade away.
What happened to that Gartley pattern that made you money time after time? If you know how to read price, you can profit by recognizing a pattern as it is forming, enter and then exit after the pattern has completed. A double top short is entered as the second peak is being made and sold into. A head and shoulder short is entered as the third shoulder is formed and sold into. You can also follow trends or enter in the opposite direction when the trend reverses. Any type of analysis that uses price as input is technical analysis. Claiming something else is merely a matter of semantics. Incidentally, I am not a big fan of trend lines.