The standard model is not a plain random walk, but a random walk with drift. (Actually a geometric random walk with drift, but thats besides the point.) The drift term for the broader US stock market is usually assumed around 8% (long term average gain based on around a century of data). That works out to around 0.022% a day, which is not what TA traders are looking for.

Doesn't "technical analysis" mean pretending that you can ignore that it is Tesla or NVIDIA and just believe that the time-series itself tells you what comes next. I.e. you believe that there is some "nature" of stock ticker data independent of the financials and business environment of the particular company.

If stock prices are so easy predict, why aren't you putting your money where your mouth is? :P Or are you? Then I'd love to hear about that obscene fortune you've made so far. :)

In all seriousness, though, there is an entire field of research whose results substantiate GP's point. This is not to say that you can't beat the market but the challenge lies in doing so consistently.

They may have missed it this time, but if you look at a recent stock market history, it was impossible to not make a fortune out of a pretty obvious portfolio. /s

> I can say with relatively strong confidence that Tesla is going to be worth more than $1 trillion in three years.

How relative is your strong confidence? If you feel this is inevitable, you can become essentially infinitely rich. Why not do it?

Of course so could others. And all your collective trades move the market. At which point it's no longer true. It can't be, not everyone can become infinitely rich.