Humans are drawn to magical thinking for a variety of reasons, in part, it gives order to where there is chaos and we are very poor at sitting with chaos. It also separates us from others so our belief in our form of magic is a form of tribalism – we have access to an answer that others don’t. Consider the video below which touches on our my major annoyances and it was a major annoyance long before I began to take aim at people in the trading arena who offered some nonsensical magical approach. Sunspot traders, I am looking at you….
You might ask why I would post such a video and I do have reservations about certain aspects of it. An MMA fighter beating the living daylights out of a Tai Chi master might seem somewhat over the top. But if you are in the public arena taking advantage of peoples gullibility and at the same time exposing them to real harm because they believe that their magic chi power will shield them from harm then I have fewer qualms than I might otherwise have. When I was much younger and sillier I used to compete in martial events that had a significant amount of contact we would generally come across someone from a kung fu school who claimed to have very powerful chi which rendered them safe from harm and embued them with tremendous power. Generally, the first thigh kick they took dropped them to the mat. Apparently chi armour only goes so far.
The same is true in trading. I accept that trading and technical analysis, in particular, is a very broad church. But this range of approaches leads to a fringe element that is so far removed from the real world to be considered irrelevant. However, they cannot be considered irrelevant because of the harm they do in the nonsense they preach. I should not be surprised but I am always am that the fringe groups take centre stage at professional conferences. My surprise is elevated at the number of people who hang on every word they say when someone with a modicum of rational thought would see straight through it. This simply confirms in me that there are people who should not be trading because they crave a certainty that trading cannot give. If you believe in magic then you will find trading to be a very disappointing and rocky road
Unfortunately in life, there is no magic outside of that which we create for ourselves in our day to day experiences and interactions.
Whilst what the videos showed is fanciful some of the things I witnessed while training with chen Xiaowang were amazing his power is unbelievable but I think his secret is small body movements to redirect his opponents force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Xiaowang
Who is the bigger idiot, the person doing the fooling or the one who believes it?
There is no magic when it comes to trading. Traders just follow a simple rule-based process system indefinitely that includes sensible position size, stock scans, trend direction, trailing stops, and holding the outlier big winning trades. Winner traders aim for small losses, break even, small gains, and big gains. No magic trading ideas such as Elliott Wave, Gann angles, Fibonacci retracements, astrological phases, moon cycles, or planetary alignments are allowed.