Is TA a self-fulfilling prophecy?

[Indrawan77]

I think most of the people not really understand about TA, technical analysis is only a speculation made by using a bunch of data, its not 100% accurate but it is showing the market condition, and in decentralised world anything could be manipulated so sometimes the speculation result could be different, TA is still very useful when you want to trade

[1715140362]

1715140362

[Cnut237]

Thanks all. Plenty of helpful and insightful responses so far, which are really helping to give me a more nuanced perspective.

[prtty2gal2]

Technical analysis does not say what's going to happen in the future of the market, it is just like when you are guessing what is going to happen, just like saying that something is likely to happen but you're not sure of it. That's what it is, it doesn't mean that what you predicted is going to happen.

If you check out most of the analysis you have been seeing since you became part of this community you will come to see that 90% of them didn't even come true. So, they are not always accurate, though sometimes they can influence the market a bit.

[Oceat]

It doesn't mean when you say TA it is a self-fulfilling TA that would change the market prices. TA is just like a guideline that would tell you what would be the next price and what strategy should you use in the next price, it is more on speculation but with data.

[neonshium]

I've long been of the opinion that technical analysis shouldn't really work with crypto markets, which are generally very thin - and for smaller coins quite easily manipulated.
However a lot of people do have faith in TA, and use it to influence their trading decisions. Since it is common knowledge that some people use TA, does this then become self-fulfilling, and so lead to increased market manipulation because if for example TA says a rise is coming, bears can wait for the inevitable fomo from TA traders and then dump en masse to short the coin and force prices back lower again... and then wait for the next TA 'signal' and repeat.
What does everyone else think? Is TA in crypto self-fulfilling in this way, and does that in turn lead some traders to exploit it in a sort of meta-TA? Or is everything I've said complete nonsense?

TA can't really be used to determine the market fully because the crypto market is very volatile and it is very difficult to make use of just technical analysis to predict what way the market is going, I personally make use of events to predict the market and it has been working for me most of the time, especially when I hear about events that is really going to cause a big change in the coin, I think you need to mix both fundamental and technical analysis in other to be able to accurately predict the direction of the crypto market.

[Supercrypt]

TA can't really be used to determine the market fully because the crypto market is very volatile and it is very difficult to make use of just technical analysis to predict what way the market is going, I personally make use of events to predict the market and it has been working for me most of the time, especially when I hear about events that is really going to cause a big change in the coin, I think you need to mix both fundamental and technical analysis in other to be able to accurately predict the direction of the crypto market.

Technical analysis is most useful where the trader is strictly dealing on hourly trade where one does not have the chance to listen to news to decide ones trade, but when it comes to other types of trades, Fundamental analysis is the major tool that should be activated to make prediction and know the direction the trade will turn to.

Let me just say that both are very important tool to trade, most people that rely on technical analysis alone are already fundamentals themselves, because they already know everything that is happening or will happen without having to read much about this, so technical becomes a useful tool to them.

[Vispilio]

You raise some interesting questions. Meta-TA is a good way to look at it.

If 100,000 people are looking onto Moving Averages, Stochastics, Volume, etc, then a winning trader should be able to interpret these

in ways that would evade the majority of the people observing them; that's how a trading edge is formulated.