Technical analysis is also synonymous with gut feelings. It’s just two things happen in finance. First is that these folks need to manufacture intelligent sounding rhetoric to explain everything even when it’s simple. And two, they’re all pricks who have superiority complexes and need to nitpick and diminish what others do which leads back to number one. Hence, “technical analysis” which as has been mentioned, is subjective. It does work for some. But if those folks were asked how they arrived at their conclusions for trading and simply said “it’s oversold on heavy volume and I think it bounces a few percent” the clipboard crowd would say it doesn’t count and they need something more quantifiable. So really, everyone should just do what works for them.
I do find charts helpful to a degree because they show sentiment, psychology, and trends. If I see a multi year ski slope chart top left to bottom right, I don’t even look at stuff more often than not. Especially if there’s dilution. Whereas if I see a serial performer typically there’s something to it.