Yes, I meant the latter version, i.e. manual detection of patterns from the price charts. Given how optimized modern trading is, I find it hard to believe that

Yes, I meant the latter version, i.e. manual detection of patterns from the price charts. Given how optimized modern trading is, I find it hard to believe that a crude method like this would work. I totally believe that with algorithm trading you can detect patterns, but I would assume that the sweet spot - like you described - would be detecting and exploiting patterns of individual actors (or a cluster of actors) instead of the patterns of the chaotic mass.