I dare progress this talk one step further to point out that it’s more specifically the perspectives, opinions, and consequent decisions of market participants that actually move price and fundamental factors are very important to the participants with high capital influence.
At the same time, there are plenty of traders who either incorporate a fair mount of TA or are very heavy into TA, which then makes it more applicable. Algorithmic trading also inherently relies on TA methods which plays a role. (Funny enough, on that same token there are algos that play off of the variances in news releases which is why the knee-jerk reactions to data prints vs expectations seem to happen so ****in’ quickly and could be another point argued for the understanding of FA and news)
Meanwhile other parts of TA I would describe as simply visual representations of mathematics that still align with your overall perspective / system / methodology and just reduce the strain on yourself, allowing more mental capital to devote to other things.
All of these are good reasons to keep an eye on TA factors, but the esoteric **** being far less important than basic stuff because the basic stuff is more widespread.
A few basic trendlines, s/r levels, and moving averages encompasses what is probably the very, very large majority of what many TA traders follow (in one way or another), which then does add some usefulness to them. That usefulness, however, does not necessarily mean a direct trading signal or otherwise direct instructions on how to trade. It simply is one more factor to dissolve into the solution that is the bigger picture. In the example listed, seeing a high confluence of commonly-watched TA factors, in the absence of strong influences elsewhere, will be something to take seriously because it means the likelihood of more participants being involved at that same price point is very very high.
But again, that still all boils down to keeping perspective on the sentiment, emotions, and perceptions of other participants. This still applies to fundamentals as well and is especially important if you find yourself, as a fundamental trader, coming to too many of your own conclusions based on your own economic analysis. That’s not the point. The point is to make sure you’re understanding how the larger players, who inherently are heavily involved with fundamentals, are thinking about these economic events and what matters to them.
The end result, which was strongly emphasized even by BP itself here in the school, is that both sides of the coin are still important. And why wouldn’t they be? You want to make good assumptions about as many of the other participants as possible, so you want to make sure you look at all of the factors that a large amount of others will look at.
/endrant.
tl;dr: Other people matter most so pay attention to what others are paying attention to.