Doug: Re: Have you ever taken a nonlinear dynamics course? I assure you that 'chaos theory' does not say anything of the sort.
Well, as someone who *has* taken nonlinear dynamics courses, I can assure that there are indeed patterns in chaotic systems. They are called "attractors", and some are quite bizarre, beautiful and unexpected. However, the patterns are generated by the randomness of the nonlinear systems, and they in no way predict the behavior of the system. Rather like TA, attractors can tell you where a system has been, but cannot give you any clue as to where it is going. It is this rather important point that is often missed by the "sunday supplement" treatment of chaotic systems.
Generally, from observing these "TA" posts, it's become apparent to me that there is a huge deficiency in educational emphasis on the scientific method and experimental design methodology...
Yeah, see, that's where you are missing the point. To understand why TA can be an effective indicator, you need to be a student of psychology and sociology, not the real sciences. Stocks often behave as predicted by the most basic tenets of TA simply because there are people who believe in TA. By acting on what TA predicts, the traders who use it essentially make it a self-fulfilling prophesy.
If enough people believed that you should sell when the moon is full and buy when the moon is new, the stock would indeed go down when the moon is full, and up when it is new. That does not mean that the moon influences the behavior of the stock. It only means that the people who believe in the moon theory influence, by their trading, the behavior of the stock.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
