I think there is no doubt that charting works as a useful...

I think there is no doubt that charting works as a useful predictive tool. But it is basically a tool for watching how other watchers react to what they are watching the share price do in response to what other traders are doing. It works best - or worst - when all players are watching each other avidly. Based on that we can predict what others are most likely to do in response to seeing what they all did previously. It's the level of confidence we are entitled to claim for our predictions that is, to me, always difficult to determine. The better the charting is the more likely it will be that someone else will reach the same conclusions and act on them at the same time you do, thus changing the outcome even as it happens. It's really like predicting the weather. It's easier to predict the weather in 5 minutes than in 5 hours or 5 days. Unless of course your model is 100% accurate, and there are no butterflies anywhere.