some time ago I bought an altcoin which has a low marketcap and trading volume. I bought after analyzing using technical indicators. After a while I realized something was wrong. it should be if based on my analysis the coin I bought has entered an oversold period and the price should have started to reverse. but in fact it never happened. the price may go up, but it doesn't last long and it goes back down. then I also bought another altcoin which is almost the same. and again, I also experienced the same thing even though in the end I got profit thanks to long-term hold.
Then I started thinking and wondering, why is it difficult to apply technical analysis to coins with low market caps. unlike bitcoin and other major altcoins whose movements are still predictable. Altcoins with low market caps are difficult and even impossible to predict. whether this is all related to manipulation or there are other reasons that make it difficult to predict.
I'm not a TA believer in general (and you should know that it's considered scientifically dubious), but if TA works for you with big coins, why not profit from them instead of bothering with low marketcap ones? As for potential reasons why unpopular coins are less predictable, I think it's largely due to a high risk of the price being manipulated by big players. Trying to manipulate the price of a coin with huge marketcap and trading volume requires immense resources that almost nobody possesses. But playing a pump and dump game with a coin that's barely traded is a different story.