What works in technical analysis?

[hitchingAride]

Objectively proving Technical analysis effectiveness is hard. Personally I believe certain technical analysis works while others do not. I believe momentum, volume, oscillators, Bollinger bands, moving averages and trends can all be good technical indicators. I find elliot wave theory, head and shoulders and other pattern indicators to be subjective and fairly useless. I am curious what your views are on TA and which methods you guys use and believe are effective?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Objectively proving Technical analysis effectiveness is hard a fool's errand. Personally I believe certain technical analysis works while others do not. I believe momentum, volume, oscillators, Bollinger bands, moving averages and trends can all be good technical indicators. I find elliot wave theory, head and shoulders and other pattern indicators to be subjective and fairly useless. I am curious what your views are on TA and which methods you guys use and believe are effective?

Fixed that for you.

Technical analysis is a bunch of woo, to use JREF-speak.  You'll notice that people like Warren Buffett and all those other zillionaires who've made their zillions in the stock market are not technical analysts.  If TA worked, this would not be the case.  It's just guesswork.  Sometimes trends are apparent, I won't argue this but the rest of it is a steaming pile of horsezit.

[BitTyro]

Being technical analyst is one thing and being a trader with a good instinct is another.
Sure TA works but not all the time. I'm only using it as a reference and not entirely as decision maker. I'm always using my instinct when I make a call and it works more often than not. If it goes the other way, I can always hold my btc or fiat which ever maybe and patiently waiting for a rebound.

[TReano]

Trend channels / support & resistance is the only thing you need in the end. Everything else takes a lot of time to get behind and is a lot of experience in order to make it a consistence trading strategy.

[odolvlobo]

Technical analysis is astrology for traders. It is based on myth, misconception, and fantasy, but it is dressed up to look like science. It provides excellent examples of confirmation bias.

[TReano]

Technical analysis is astrology for traders. It is based on myth, misconception, and fantasy, but it is dressed up to look like science. It provides excellent examples of confirmation bias.

okay. So trading is basically always coin flipping? I am sure it isn't.

People stating something like that lack COMPLETEL any understanding of economics or even trading.

[odolvlobo]

Technical analysis is astrology for traders. It is based on myth, misconception, and fantasy, but it is dressed up to look like science. It provides excellent examples of confirmation bias.

okay. So trading is basically always coin flipping? I am sure it isn't.
People stating something like that lack COMPLETEL any understanding of economics or even trading.

Trading is not coin flipping for some people. Trading is about arbitrage and asymmetric information, but it is mostly about recognizing opportunities and acting on them. TA does not provide  any real information. It is worthless (unless you are trading against other traders using TA, perhaps).

[TReano]

Technical analysis is astrology for traders. It is based on myth, misconception, and fantasy, but it is dressed up to look like science. It provides excellent examples of confirmation bias.

okay. So trading is basically always coin flipping? I am sure it isn't.
People stating something like that lack COMPLETEL any understanding of economics or even trading.

Trading is not coin flipping for some people. Trading is about arbitrage and asymmetric information, but it is mostly about recognizing opportunities and acting on them. TA does not provide  any real information. It is worthless (unless you are trading against other traders using TA, perhaps).

thanks for stating that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about...

[bileq]

technical analysis is not totaly secure, depends on market volume. if the volume is enough high i think 1h,2h,4h,daily trends are more secure for daily trading. for long term i dont trust any indicators and analysis for any coins

[odolvlobo]

Technical analysis is astrology for traders. It is based on myth, misconception, and fantasy, but it is dressed up to look like science. It provides excellent examples of confirmation bias.

okay. So trading is basically always coin flipping? I am sure it isn't.
People stating something like that lack COMPLETEL any understanding of economics or even trading.

Trading is not coin flipping for some people. Trading is about arbitrage and asymmetric information, but it is mostly about recognizing opportunities and acting on them. TA does not provide  any real information. It is worthless (unless you are trading against other traders using TA, perhaps).

thanks for stating that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about...

I think it is more telling that you have no idea what I am talking about.

[bitmarket.net]

There's a saying that technical analysis is a bit like a weather forecast - wrong too often to rely on it, but correct too often to ignore it

Seriously though, technical analysis should be used more as a signal what not to do - for instance never buy if you're getting strong sell signals from technical analysis.

Don't use just one technical analysis study, but instead wait until you get 2-3 studies generating the same signal.

[hitchingAride]

There's a saying that technical analysis is a bit like a weather forecast - wrong too often to rely on it, but correct too often to ignore it

Seriously though, technical analysis should be used more as a signal what not to do - for instance never buy if you're getting strong sell signals from technical analysis.

Don't use just one technical analysis study, but instead wait until you get 2-3 studies generating the same signal.

^^^ I like that saying a good analogy.

[andy75]

TA work in certain conditions there is no 1 indicator which will cover 100% of situations.
so scan the market 1d 4h 1h 15m and try to understand where the market is heading.
what i am trying to do is buy low after market fall (mainly use BB & KC & others) and wait for it to recover.
is not full proof but i had more gains than losses.
and the waiting sometimes kills me

good luck with trading

[gentlemand]

Sacrificing one's goat? I'd love to see a breakdown of the TA proclamations here versus what really happened. You can be noodling away with your lines while a Gox failure happens.

I can imagine it might have a smidge of validity in markets that are fully established, transparent and liquid. Bitcoin is not a single one of these.

[romero121]

Every time you won't get the desired result with technical analysis, but the real fact is that, without technical analysis its very tough to predict the future outcomes of a growing or grown technology.

[enhu]

For FOREX trader however its the technical analysis that works good particularly for day traders. they depend mostly on those indicators from moving averages, RSI, MAcD and god knows what they put in their graphs These however don't work for crypto traders as coins are mostly controlled by whales and news which affects its values.

[bitmarket.net]

Technical analysis is astrology for traders. It is based on myth, misconception, and fantasy, but it is dressed up to look like science. It provides excellent examples of confirmation bias.

okay. So trading is basically always coin flipping? I am sure it isn't.
People stating something like that lack COMPLETEL any understanding of economics or even trading.

Trading is not coin flipping for some people. Trading is about arbitrage and asymmetric information, but it is mostly about recognizing opportunities and acting on them. TA does not provide  any real information. It is worthless (unless you are trading against other traders using TA, perhaps).

I would add that trading is above all about the risk management.