are trend lines self-fulfilling prophesies?

ANY line you place on your chart is just that... a line on YOUR chart. period. YOU are the one that brings meaning and usefulness to the line tool (and any other drawing or indicator).

That said, like most WIDELY USED tools and indicators, if enough people are following/tracking on the same time or non-time based frame, it can/will invoke an acknowledgement/reaction on the chart. What immediately comes to mind are TL's of daily and weekly charts, and Fibonacci levels of obvious swing zones. When/if recognized by the masses, acknowledgment and reaction become "reasons" and "excuses". The S&P broke the February low, OMG!!! IndexZ bounced off the 200-day MA, whoohoo, everyone into the pool!! That kind of mass-reasoning is what perpetuates and elevates those tools and indicators to where there IS a self-fulfilling aspect that savvy traders will and do exploit. That exploitation "helps" the market suck-in as many as it can onto the wrong side. Look at the hatred of the latest nearly 10 year bull market. Did you read about any hedgies having terrible years or closing shop? How bout right now... the market is coming off historic highs, in an orderly fashion(for now anyway) I might add.

Not giving a prediction, but I would not be surprised to see lots of people caught on the short-side of things. That's not a forecast or prediction, and when it would happen I don't know. But it would not surprise me, AT ALL. I trade intraday... Up, down, and all around... I'm flat at EOD, every trading day. I also use TLs on fast charts.

Trade On!

Thank you for your reply. What is "TL"?
 
"are trend lines self-fulfilling prophesies?"

Yes and everything is, and the more traders who join drive price even faster, if hedge funds and HFTs join in, most likely there be continuation, you want more people to join the party, volume drives most trends, no volume like the Indexes skyrocketing on steep movement to new all highs, that steep movement on lessor volume tells world only one's buying are smaller traders and bigger traders are feeding them.

Getting into moves where you against volume is like sitting on train tracks and saying train going to stop for you.
 
Hello,

I've been studying a lot of candlestick charts with trend lines and trend channels. Very many of them seem to "magically" touch the bottom of an upward trendline and then go back up. Like this example (once the blue line gets touched, the trend line is respected and the stock goes back up):

View attachment 184380

I get the feeling that traders are watching the trend line, seeing the lower channel line get hit, and then saying "ok, now it's a safe time to buy". That in turn triggers increased selling interest, which drives the price up, and confirms the trendline. A lot of times the stock price bounces off of the lower trend channel with remarkable, repeated precision.

I'm wondering if these trend lines are kind of like the tail wagging the dog: the trendlines are actually causing market behavior. Any thoughts on this?
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SMB;do guard rails on the road ''cause behavior'' No, but a good guide. Generally,bull markets have no resistance; bear markets have no support, so guess which one your chart is??:cool::cool:Thanks for the question
 
I saw the video. When it comes to horizontal lines this is why it is the best to trade the lines everyone can see. For example, the previous day’s high and low. This is why Fibonacci is not reliable, IMO, because not that many people use it on their charts.

When it comes to trendlines that signify uptrends/downtrends, like Tom said, it means accumulation or distribution by large traders, funds/banks/HFTs—with the exception of “Trend Day” like action—an unrelenting price move in one direction.

So in a normal accumulation/distribution scenario, I think buying or selling when price meets the trend line is a risky play. Because like other posters said, the lines are subjective. But also, you never know when the the big traders will stop buying or selling and the trendline will break. In fact, in the case of an uptrend, the big traders may stop buying ON PURPOSE because they feel support is weak and they can get better prices. So when the line breaks, all the weak hands get out—the trend is over! This gives the big traders the volume to buy again at lower prices.

This exact kind of action is in the middle of the chart in the OP. Look for the buying tail. This is the low risk play.
 
Trend lines exhibit a typical fallacy of hindsight and forced/artificial curve fitting.

They are only accurate after the fact and of no statistical meaning at all, meaning complete randomness. However, sometimes they do fit even in real time, akin to the proverb that a broken clock is right twice a day.
 
Very good question. I will attempt to answer.

Answer: Sell positions where it technically make sense and where others maybe selling at. Don't sell all positions, but anytime price touch a known/proven resistance sell positions til 4% of long positions are gone.

Is my answer correct?

Erm, wont that make the drop worse? If anything they should be looking to sell at technical areas where people are likely to buy. This will provide the much needed liquidity to get rid of their position without moving the markets much.
 
Geared towards support and resistance lines, but still on topic of this thread.
Several years old, and has been posted elsewhere on ET too.



I like this video, but I'm just not so sure about it. I get it. You could place some random horizontal lines on a chart, and some would fit in and look like support/resistance points. But that is just pure chance - random. The question is, can those coming up with support/resistance points do BETTER than this randomness. His video does not answer that. And lots of places where the lines don't match up he either flubs or glosses over haha.

Still, fun video. But I'm not convinced.
 
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