If this is the strategies they are selling it seems like a cash grab, and not an alpha producing strategy.
could you expand on this? I always understood it as, technical analysis has become a self fulfilling prophecy and you have different players trying to manipulate that fact
you've got pressures (sizable... I think? not really sure how to measure) from ETF inflows long + short from the "day trading/swing trading" crowd, also the "0-day-to-expiration SPY/QQQ options" gambling crowd.
Then you have the "hedge funds" with the "high frequency trading algorithms" sitting there in a predatory fashion trying to manipulate the emotions.
"Just because the 20/50 SMA crossed doesn't mean it's going to rocket because I'm going to pray on the opposite"
That's how I see at least, curious to hear if I'm off my rocker. I agree with you, no mixture of boiling down the market into simple signals off of things like volume/patterns/averages is long-term exploitable, and that's the whole problem. What works sometimes doesn't work others because of all of the different factors/players at play.
With that said, is there any conclusive research on whether algorithm/quant based trading is actually profitable (generates alpha)?