I hate to break it to you but MA's are one of the favourite Technical Analysis tools of traders.. You are using TA
You are very confused. TA is data analysis based on price as opposed to data analysis based on fundmentals. Applying standard statistical and mathematical methods to price is TA. Anyone, including you, using "just simple data analysis" is using TA.
Technical analysis is a pretty broad subject so it is easy to get confused. Let's keep it simple. In the broadest sense, TA really means just using something derived from price, time, and volume to make decisions about when to enter and exit trades. Here are some examples: a. using moving averages to make trading decisions. b. using high and low price points to determine price channels, resistance and support levels, or pivot points. c. Using a series of high or a series of low price points to determine a price trend line, or both to determine a sloped price channel. d. Creating a point and figure chart to identify price trend reversals. (P and F charts appear to not depend on time, however time is actually absorbed into them. Were that not so it would not be possible to obtain support and resistance lines from P&F charts. Time is present as an implicit variable in these charts. That means that when you view the chart you will not be aware that time is present in the chart, nevertheless it is present implicitly.) e. creating a market profile chart where on just two axes we can include price time and volume information. (the time information is absorbed, so it is implicit rather than explicit, just as time is an implicit variable in point and figure charts .) f. defining price figures such as wedges, triangles, pennants, etc. on time and price charts. g. using charts of price change per number of ticks. (tick charts) Tick charts also absorb time as an implicit variable. h. Creating any one of thousands of possible so called "indicators" by mathematically combining values for price, time, and volume in different ways and displaying the result as a plot. e.g., MACD (moving average convergence and divergence, etc., etc. etc. ad infinitum. AND, i would even argue that when we trade from a time and sales "tape" or using a DOM (depth of market) display, while we are not explicitly using TA in the usual sense, we nevertheless are. For example, we can infer from a DOM display the same features that give rise to support and resistance on a time and price chart. The bottom line is that when you view technical analysis broadly, as i have done here, you are not going to escape using technical analysis when you trade. TA is part and parcel of trading, and very different from what is called fundamental analysis, as others have pointed out. Now what some mean when they say TA is one of those myriad "indicators" (see "h." above) derived from time, price and volume and plotted as a squiggly line or histogram somewhere on your time and price chart or below it. These particular indicators are absolutely not needed to trade successfully, yet some find them useful. Now as to the academic argument. To understand it you have understand that academicians such as economists use models and these models are carefully defined, and they may or may not have much to do with reality, though the goal in every discipline, with the possible exception of theoretical mathematics, is to find a model that resembles reality as closely as possible. Some fields are much more successful in that regard than others. For example, Science has developed many models which seem to be accurate mimics of reality, e.g., the quantum wave model for the hydrogen atom. In economics, however, there is a difficulty that scientists do not encounter, and that is the problem of accounting for human nature in their models. Evidently the stock market is more difficult to model than a simple atom. We are not surprised, therefore , to find that economic models often fail to predict real economic behavior, though they have been shown to be sufficiently correct to be useful in many instances. Economists, of course, have models for the stock market, one of the most popular models assumes what they call the "efficient market hypothesis" which states that anything affecting price such as news is instantly incorporated by the market, so that prices move instantaneously to the "correct" level based on all available information (which is also assumed to be instantaneously available). Real markets have inefficiencies, and if they didn't nobody could make any money by trading them! Furthermore, academic models are mostly concerned with what happens on average on the long run, whereas traders are concerned with what happens in a specific case over the next few minutes, hours, or days. It is easy, therefore, to see why results from academic models are not always applicable to real world trading, and the statements of academicians may, at times, sound ridiculous to traders . The academician is not wrong, his perspective is different, that's all. And finally let's lay that old saw viz., "those that can do and those that can't teach" to rest in the junkyard of false wisdoms. It is simply not true. In fact, in virtually all academic disciplines at the University level, the faculty are selected according to their ability to do as much, or unfortunately in some cases more so, then their ability to teach. It would probably be more correct to say: "Those that are best at what they do are concentrated in Universities, and unfortunately not all can teach."
haha, you always crack me up. Some of the world's most successful traders use simple trend following techniques, such as moving averages. By the way folks, in trading as well as any other profession if you want to be successful, it might be a good idea to study others who actually have been successful and ask, what did they do?
There are two forms of TA. Predictive and Trend Following. An example of predictive TA would be: Prices are moving up right now, but I know that they will turn around and move down tomorrow because of xyz indicator. An example of trend following TA : Prices have moved up enough so that my moving average is now slanted up indicating an uptrend. I will now buy. When the price crosses below the moving average I will sell, because such a move might indicate that the uptrend has ended. Trend following TA is valid and effective. Predictive TA is garbage. That's my opinion.