It is easy to understand and appreciate a painting after it is painted.
In real time when the artist (market) starts to paint the first candle on the left, I have no idea what he will be painting next.
And I am clueless what to do at 1, 2, 3, or 4 other than wait and watch.
You have a belief about the market concept wrong, imo ironchef.
The market is not an artist.
The market is a machine.
Once you understand that which I did years ago, it becomes easier.
The machine kicks in and out of gear, going forward, backwards and disengages.
But the machine is at times 'overwhelmed' by emotional and erratic retail which causes the machine to disengage.
Sometimes its difficult to differentiate between retail and machine as imo blowoffs could be the deliberate attempts by machine to pop the market up or down to a) escape, b) enter c) reverse.
The machine is clever, tireless, focused, repetitive, predictable.
The machine operates by rules.
The machine is not emotional or artistic, but because the machine disengages, noobs have the wrong impression and jump to wrong conclusions as emotional retail trading takes over.
Can you see the machine?