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Well...random with a positive trendline can still be random. The fact that there's a positive trend globally doesn't change the fact that the local behavior is indistinguishable from random noise. The way I tend to think about it is that the deltas day to day are completely random, but shifted up from neutral by just a touch, so that the overall trend is upward but the micro behavior is unpredictable.

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If I understand you correctly, you believe that "micro behavior is unpredictable", thereby suggesting that technical analysis (TA) is not possible on shorter timeframes. However, you seem to allow for some applicability of TA on larger timeframes, such as the concept of a "positive trendline", a term that occurs quiet frequently in TA. That's an interesting perspective.

I mean insofar as "market goes up over time", that's been pretty much a guarantee, at least on a large enough timeframe, since what, the 1930s? I wouldn't call that TA though, that's basic observation of a trend over time. TA purports to read the market's "mood" and predict its behavior via a bunch of mathematical indicators, which are about as useful and scientific as pickup artistry.

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