Technical analysis persists in practice without ever achieving academic legitimacy

Evidence

Chartism never achieved institutionalization in academia, but it became a lasting component of how many financial practitioners think about markets. It offered a vernacular theory of markets (one rooted not in economics but in speculations about investor psychology and perhaps even in the sociology of “herd behavior”) and a way of making sense of markets that was, and is, attractive (Preda 2004b). Much mass-media presentation of markets with its citation of “trends,” “reversals,” “corrections,” “resistance levels,” and so, and with its fascination with salient round-number index levels such as a DowJones level of 10,000 is in a sense a diluted form of chartism. Even in Chicago’s derivatives markets, heavily influenced as they are by finance theory, I encountered chartists. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 337

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Pure text-based qualitative analysis collapses when it lacks resistance from wider evidence — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1958; Failed measurement instruments keep accumulating literature because researchers keep using them anyway — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2033

Broader Connections

• Pure text-based qualitative analysis collapses when it lacks resistance from wider evidence #corroborates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1958
• Failed measurement instruments keep accumulating literature because researchers keep using them anyway #exemplifies (0.80) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2033