Probably.
What's your actual experience in the market? Do you have practical experience or only book knowledge? Have you ever back-tested anything at all? Do you have access to highly detailed datasets of the market(s) you're looking at?
Back-testing is just as much about discovering what doesn't work as to what does work. Answering one question usually gives 10 new questions. It's a matter of problem solving.
The truth is that the market is full of patterns which repeats themselves. These patterns may or may not resemble what's presented in popular books. They may be based on price patterns or they may be statistical patterns which can't be easily identified using charts alone.
Roughly speaking - every day is a variation of a common theme and there's only so many in a given market. For example today was an Up Day. Yesterday, too. Monday as well.
Back-testing/back-checking and endlessly studying your chosen market is the key to actually learning your market as it is. For most people and especially the lonely retail trader this takes years. Eventually, the market becomes a familiar place and to some degree predictable.
I never believed the markets to be random and early on found proof they weren't, so for me I decided the pursuit was worth it, although it's possible I would have chosen another path if I knew how demanding this was.
PS: While I subscribe to the school of 'predicting' there's other successful traders who merely 'follow price' instead. At the end of the day - they're predicting too, IMO.
