Why Technical Analysis Will Fail

Hey traders I’m a new guy to this forum, I just wanted to spread my 2 cents about forex strategies from my experience as a trader. I have been trading for quite some time now and I have come to the realization that Technical Analysis will fail you more than it will help you.

Quick story, my uncle is 59 years old. He has been trading since before I was even born. He makes a living from trading and he also lives very comfortably. He drives a new BMW and a nice sized house. Now my uncle does not have the patience or the time to sit a try to learn a bunch of technical rules and analysis to apply to the forex market. This is trading, not math. He literally only uses a 100 day moving average and a daily chart with RSI. I rarely ever see him on the laptop maybe once or twice a week. He is also a stock trader. And I think this plays a huge role in his forex trading style because he holds positions for longer times.

Think about it. wouldn’t you much rather risk a small amount, to make a huge amount and all you had to do is wait a couple days or weeks? This is how trading is suppose to be like.

Have you ever spotted a perfect setup where price may have been rejected from a perfect support or resistance level, or trendline? So you place your trade and then you come back to check on things and you discover you have been stopped out? You asking yourself what went wrong or “This was the perfect setup”.

The problem with TA or price action is that you can’t give the market a set of rules like support and resistance because the market does not follow rules! The market is completely random for the most part. Now don’t get me wrong, you may see significant support/ resistance levels when you zoom out to the daily charts, but most of us don’t like waiting days and weeks for one trade setup. Also price action is seen differently among different traders. A support level may not look the same way to someone else. Or a trend line may not be the same trend line some one else see’s.

Traders make things way too hard. This is trading…not rocket science! Have you ever looked at an interview of a professional millionaire trader? And you happen to take a glance at their trading setup and charts? Then you discover that they don’t even use a bunch of indicators than junk up their charts? instead all they really have is maybe volume and a couple moving averages. The people that are making millions don’t sit in front of their screens all day trying to draw a bunch of trend lines and levels. instead, they are entering long term trends and holding the positions and taking big chunks out of the market. I personally trade the daily charts and I use heiken ashi candles. I enter trends and I ride them until the trend is over, while scaling out and taking profit. Similar to stock trading. I am sometimes in the market for days or even weeks but I don’t spend hours in front of the screen making live hard…lol

My point here is I think if you want to make consistent money in forex, you need to get rid of all the indicators and trade two ways. One way, is simply follow the trend. Using a simple moving average can help you spot trends. Once you find one, look for an entry and ride the wave.

The other way, is to trade news events and releases. Think about it, this is the only time where we as traders know when a big movement is about to take place. So why not capitalize off this? You can either straddle the news or just go with the breakout. More than likely you will be more profitable. Now by no means is this a 100% successful way of trading. We know there is no such thing! but wouldn’t you much rather take a risk on a big news announcement that will surely move the markets, instead of trying to figure out where price action is?

Just my thoughts about trading…I just think people make things way harder and it’s simply because they have been mislead.

I agree very much, but every traders journey will be different. Great philosophy & story.

The market is not random and will never be as long as humans trade the market. Pull up any chart and you will see levels which are respected time and time again. Any idiot can see that, plain as day.

Trend following is mostly dead in today’s choppy Forex markets. Give me a range trader over a trend trader every time.

Trading news is for the most part a joke if you’re a retail trader.

Don’t mind me, I’ll continue failing as a TA trader making 5-25% returns per month.

[QUOTE=“bwillz092;626672”]Hey traders I’m a new guy to this forum, I just wanted to spread my 2 cents about forex strategies from my experience as a trader. I have been trading for quite some time now and I have come to the realization that Technical Analysis will fail you more than it will help you.
[/QUOTE]

How long have you been trading…?

Do you realize that what you describe (using a few moving averages and an RSI) is still technical analysis?

This.

Also, if you think the market is completely random, you clearly haven’t tried looking for patterns very hard. There are examples everywhere you look that show otherwise. Easy to trade and be profitable off of it? Maybe not. But completely random is absurd.

Well what i said is simply my opinion…I have been trading for 2 years now.

The problem is that humans no longer move the markets anymore. Today we are really trading against computers. The market is actually manipulated. Do your research… And news does play a huge role in the market, just not right away. It always plays out in the long run…And If your making good money, then simply disregard this. But for people that have had trouble trying to figure out complicated technical analysis, I think resorting to news and long term trends will always work.

Lol. I’m sorry, but I can’t take you seriously anymore.

The market is manipulated? How?

[QUOTE=“jadd806;626806”]

Lol. I’m sorry, but I can’t take you seriously anymore.

The market is manipulated? How?[/QUOTE]

Technically he is correct about the manipulation aspect. Many traders at the large banks are being investigated and fired for manipulating forex prices going into the London 4 pm fixing. Lots of news articles regarding this.

The type of manipulation they are/were doing would not affect most retail traders however.

Everyone has their own methods. Your uncle drives a BMW but I know a guy who owns his own estate with a company worth well over 100 mill.

My point is there are so many ways to make money and even more ways to do it in forex. I’m at 20% gain this month after the eurusd and usdchf daily engulfing bars. And it’s been that way because it works for me just as trend riding has worked for your uncle.

You can’tbe right all the time. If you’ve had a bad experience with a certain method move on and try to find one that works for you. Technicals aren’t the only way but they certainly do work for a lot of ppl.

Manipulation exists. HFT does too. So do people behind the screen handling a couple billion. Times have changed and so do methods. One thing that stays the same is the number of ever growing method out there for you to try.

so as with heikin ashi :slight_smile:

Saying something like “Technical Analysis Will Fail” is very dogmatic. I try to avoid believing in absolute “truths”. It’s like saying there’s only one correct way to paint a picture.

I would say there are other ways of making money besides technical analysis, but that’s about it.

You obviously don’t do your own research therefore you don’t know what I’m talking about…you can’t take me serious? So apparently you just have all the answers and knowledge about forex right? I don’t think so, or else you wouldn’t be on this forum. You think wall street traders have a bunch of techncial indicators on their charts? No, they have high frequency trading which is programmed by computers. People like you and me, are just the little fish of the market and we just feed off the bigger fish in the market or the “Big Players” that have enough money to move the market. Do your homework before you come at me like you know everything…

[QUOTE=“bwillz092;626942”]
You think wall street traders have a bunch of techncial indicators on their charts? No, they have high frequency trading which is programmed by computers.[/QUOTE]

What are the high frequency trading algorithms using to determine trade entry criteria?

Using heiken ashi candles is not technical analysis, it’s just showing trends better. I do observe trends but I do not support and resistance levels or anything. You can’t argue with the fact that forex is just a reaction of what is going on in the world. Too much technical analysis will blind you of what is actually taking place in the economy. This is not some type of mathematics game or calculation…this is the economy!

You obviously are ignorant to the facts…you just think you know everything about trading and you dont. Everything isn’t what is seems to be. And the markets are not following supply and demand these days. Computers have and will continue to take over the market and yes that includes FOREX. There has been countless scandals and manipulation issues in this market and we are no longer trading against actual humans. These guys have multi million dollar computer servers that trade high frequency, entering in and out of the market faster than a human can from home. They also know the economic data even before it’s released…if you really know anything about trading, you will know that it is based off the economy. it’s not just a bunch of kids adding lines to their charts and saying price is will go here and go there. Because believe me, if a high impact data is released, the market will not have any problem breaking right through these levels that you use. Forex trading use to be a serious thing, now it’s like a game and day traders will keep proving the statistics right. over 95% of day traders lose. So numbers definitely don’t lie. I just state my own opinion about this market and if you don’t agree with is that’s fine, but at least have your facts…

[QUOTE=“bwillz092;626947”]You obviously are ignorant to the facts…you just think you know everything about trading and you dont.[/QUOTE]

Who are you talking to?

If you go to any professional trader, they will tell you the exact same thing. The only technical analysis that I think should be performed is looking at charts as they are…no special indicators or anything. Heiken ashi is just another way of seeing trends. Sure there are people that are doing just fine using technical analysis, but all I’m saying is in the future, all of that will fail time and time again. It’s already happening today. Forex is based off the economy. and if you don’t know what’s going on in the economy, you will get trampled by the big players. If some negative data has just been released, you can’t bet that the market will react to that and if it chooses to, it will wipe out your technical analysis with no problem. All I’m saying here is that too many traders rely soley on TA and not enough on the actual economy. Day traders are mainly the ones using a bunch of indicators, and day traders are the ones that lose 95% of the time…think about it…

So how does the idea that computers are ruling the market change the way you trade? If computers were trading the market, they would be more likely to only use technical analysis since computers can’t analyze subjective fundamental situations very well, so then you would need to trade with technicals to keep up with the computers no?

Trust me if any of us knew that, we wouldn’t even be here.lol