this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
161 points (95.5% liked)

Comic Strips

20335 readers
2532 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

[a "technical analysis" chart shows a lot of silly things: a bull flag, a falling wedge, a hairy bear channel, a bidet loop, a top bottom, a blood candle, and a testicular squeeze]

[character] Isn't all that "Technical Analysis" stuff basically astrology?

[proud traderbro, index finger up, in his STONKS hoodie and backwards cap] Oh yeah? If TA doesn't work, then how come most daytraders use it to successfully lose cash?

https://thebad.website/comic/is_this_losses

https://bsky.app/profile/thebad.website

top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 35 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I used to work in a high frequency trading firm. Our company's existence was based purely on whether we could predict growth or loss with more than 50% accuracy. We sometimes looked at TA when we needed a good laugh.

TA is marketing. Someone wants you to buy a stock, so the result is "it grows". Then they draw lines and write big words to pretend they arrived at that result through data analysis.

[–] Bad@jlai.lu 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 months ago

Fucking hell if I had 2 mill to lose I'd just chuck it in index funds and retire

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's self fulfilling... The market often behaves how those in it think it should behave.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It could be self fulfilling if the analysis had any objective metric in it at all.

But it doesn't, so people can't agree on the prophecy, so they can't fulfill it.

But it's still subjective enough that you can fit any historical data, so no loss.

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

But they're not computers trying to show any graph can be made to fit anywhere... They're humans, sticking things in the most obvious places/ways... Then sometimes writing about it in communities the others read.

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And yet, simple candlestick charting can be a solid indication of selling vs. buying pressure to help indicate successful actions.

[–] null@lemmy.nullspace.lol 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah I mean the obvious answer is that making predictions based on analysing past data is obviously nothing like Astrology.

[–] Speculater@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If it worked, it would already be automated, and if that worked, people would inverse it to exploit the down side, which would be rexploited.

[–] null@lemmy.nullspace.lol 2 points 3 months ago

Of course retail daytraders don't stand a chance against firms who do this for a living. Nor did anyone say that predictions are 100% accurate.

Doesn't change the fact that predicting changes in the markets based on previous trends is nothing like Astrology.