Been trading for two years and still can’t figure this out.
Sometimes my support and resistance levels work perfectly, other times they break like they were never there. Same with moving averages and trend lines.
Starting to wonder if I’m just seeing what I want to see.
Works enough to keep me profitable most months.
Technical analysis works but not the way most people think. Those levels and patterns show you where other traders are making decisions, not magic price barriers. Support breaks when there aren’t enough buyers at that level. It holds when there are. The trick is understanding volume and market context, not just drawing lines on charts. Use TA to identify high probability setups, then manage risk properly when you’re wrong. The patterns fail plenty, but they give you an edge over random entries.
TA is real but it’s not predictive magic. It’s more like a probability game.
I’ve been tracking my setups for years and found that support/resistance levels work about 60-65% of the time. The key thing I learned is that these levels are strongest when they align with other factors.
Like when a major support level hits right at a 61.8% Fibonacci retracement and there’s divergence on RSI. Those setups have way better odds than just drawing random lines.
The moving averages thing though - they lag too much for day trading. I mostly use them to identify the overall trend direction, then look for entries against short term moves.
What really changed my trading was accepting that even good setups fail 35-40% of the time. Once I stopped expecting TA to be right all the time and focused on proper position sizing, my results got much more consistent.
The patterns you’re seeing are real. They just don’t work every single time.
TA works better on higher timeframes. Daily charts are more reliable than the 5 minute noise most people stare at.
Technical analysis gives you structure but markets don’t care about your lines.
I use support and resistance as areas where price might react, not exact levels where it will definitely bounce or break. The more times a level gets tested, the weaker it becomes.
Price action around these zones tells you more than the zones themselves. Watch how price approaches your levels and how volume behaves when it gets there.