In the real world, technical analysis is definitely useful especially looking at short term trends using geometric methods such as descending vs. ascending triangles, head and shoulders etc.
I also find candle light charts helpful in understanding trade volume difference in open and close along with high and low in price, which reflect forces of supply and demand in the futures market.
The annotated example in the chart shows a stock that has a gap opened up. Prior to the open, the buy orders quantity is above that of sell orders, and the price increased to attract more sellers. Initially, there was a rapidly increasing demand. And thus, the intra-day low reflects the availability of supply (sellers). The close represents final price agreed by the buyers and sellers. It is below the high and closer to the low. This illustrates that despite of having a strong demand from buyers during the day, it is ultimately supply that prevailed and put downward pressure of the price. Here, we observe the battle between supply and demand. So basically, higher prices reflect a surge in demand, and lower prices reflect an increase in supply.
If I learned technical analysis earlier on, it would have been useful in predicting futures price based on the pattern or trend analysis.
