Quote from jdeezero05:
I don't really see the difference between TA and statistical analysis, most TA is just a derivative of a moving average. Its not like traders came up with the idea of a moving average, its stats 101 stuff. The problem is that in most cases a moving average is like bringing a butter knife to an automatic weapons duel.
Most people don't have the math background and/or probabilistic mindset to go beyond this though. Thats why you don't see Analysis of Financial Time Series by Tsay at Barnes and Noble in the trading book section..no one would buy it.
My response would be that the FAR MAJORITY of TA that is peddled is completely subjective and tends to draw inferences from anecdotal observations.
When cornered to look at the universe of alternative outcomes, practitioners tend to become defensive and argue that you just don't have the "gift" of vision.
Or when their model fails, they explain it away by saying that it needed to be re calibrated to adjust for XXXX.
After diligently studying a few TA books, the neophyte eventually encounters nagging thoughts like, why is it that when I tried the author's explanation on a different chart, the results came out different, they begin to realize something is lacking. This is where the true knowledge begins.
Whereas, statistics attempts to look at the entire body of information and attempts to draw conclusions as objectively as possible. As an objective approach it is usually a more sobering view of truth, as it does not have the luxury of cherry picking observations to draw conclusions
(although it does have a word for it; termed bias). Statistics is not without it's warts, but it is immensely more useful
to describe information in an objective and truthful manner IMO.
That's not to say you can not approach conventional TA using statistical tools.
Very few have taken the time to do this.
Very few books advocate this.
In summary, no:
TA as it is typically defined in the myriad of books is not equal to statistics.
