I am a long-term stock investor, and lately I have noticed that many of my favorite stocks areindeed, beginning to exhibit somewhat periodic behavior. This leads me to suspect that a large percentage of investors arenow in the belief that stock pricing can be modelled. Suppose (for the sake of this discussion), 10% of the investors in a popular stock (say INTEL Inc.) buy into an investment guide, which “predicts” the future price movement of the stock. The newslatter says something lie “buy INTEL when the price dips below $21.00/share, seel when it approaches $24.00/share”.
Would these investors then begin to ACTUALLY influence the behavior of the stock? All of those “buy” orders would cause brokers/market makers to bid up the stock…and the “sell” orders would likewaise cause the market makers to do the reverse.
All of which leads to the interesting question: are the purveyers of these charst INFLUENCING THE MARKET TO THEIR OWN ADVANTAGE? After all, if I am a successful chartist (i.e. people buy my newslettr) then I could make lots of money by doing the opposite of what my newsletter recommends! Just like Joe Granville (who precipitated a huge market drop in 1989…did he make money off that)? 
If people are dumb enough to believe chartists, the have only themselves to blame. 
From what I can see, though chatists actually believe what they’re purveying and are doing what they advise. They are too busy searching for nonexistant patterns that if the patters do come true, they’re more likely to follow their own advice to prove their own wisdom.
Yes, they are, and they’re going to keep it up until Britain has a secret ballot and universal male sufferage.
It’s pretty clear you’re not involved in the business or know anything about technical analysis. Suffice to say it’s a lot more than head and shoulders tops. To say that technical analysis doesn’t work is like saying a hammer doesn’t “work.” There isn’t a single profitable trader I know who wouldn’t laugh at your statements. I have been a prop trader for the three largest/most profitable hedge funds, some of whom you no doubt have heard of, and the fearless leaders of those funds ALL use TA. If you give me a bar chart and don’t tell me what it is or inform me of any news about it, I will still make money.
Yes, but every investor influences the price of the stock.
It’s no more/less possible to profit off of recommendations based on fundamentals if there are specific price levels given. One of the best cases of manipulation through recommendation was that 16 yr old kid who bought stock and then spammed message boards with his recommendations. He made a lot of money. Gotta hand it to him.