You have made my point perfectly. Your trade was based on the logic: if the price goes up [above the resistance line] then it will go up some more. In this particular instance you were right, but I am sure there are similar examples where you lost on the trade.
Yeah....if you just go drawing lines on any old bunch of spikes or dips then go saying if X happens then do this, but if Y happens then do that, you will likely be wrong a hell of a lot. But this one was looking at the bigger picture using support trendline that dated as far back as Jan 2013 and a resistance that went back to January and I still admit that I was wrong in that I thought the market would go down a bit more, but never placed any bets until the confirmation of market intent was made. Sure, the market still could have double backed on me, but by correctly identifying these patterns and potential turning points, the trader is greatly increasing his chances of making a good trade.
Yes, you are looking at the bigger picture. And of course, looking at the bigger picture is a good thing. But you're still just making my point. All you have done in the above paragraph is to flesh out the [insert fancy TA terminology] just a little bit. And I'm sure you could flesh it out some more. But it still boils down to:
"[Lots of TA analysis of the bigger picture, and the smaller picture, and the in between picture, coupled with my intuition], oh look, the market just went up! Given my aforementioned analysis, I am going to buy now."
Eh. I'd cut Mat some slack. He had the right intuition all throughout the bear market,
I won't deny that.
when a lot of bulls were still (or: again, and again) in denial.
I'm not so sure that bulls / HODLers are in denial. It's just that they are much more focused on the long term trajectory (years) than on the medium or short term trajectories (months, days). In fact, most bulls are already predicting the NEXT crash, after the impending bubble.