Market sentiment is driven by a lot of factors including human emotion. So none of these tools are going to be accurate predictors of price movement. However, there are certain things in the market that are pretty solid indicators in my opinion. For example, RSI (relative strength index) shows when something is overbought or oversold and is a great tool to use. Typically an RSI of 70-80 is indicative of a coming sell-off or people taking profits after participating in the price appreciation rally (if RSI remains elevated for a period of time). Similarly, an RSI of 30, 40, 50 indicates that a company is over-sold and could present a good opportunity for starting a new position. Other things like head and shoulders and double top patterns are generally a crapshoot in my opinion. With that said, I do think that algorithmic trading uses these patterns, so maybe there is some merit to them.