There is a framing I keep coming back to that is worth putting in front of people who mostly think about this board in technical terms (I know I do - most of what I have posted here has been about footprint bars, volume profile, VSA, that side of things).
Technical analysis tells you what has already happened on the chart. It does not tell you why one setup that looks identical to another behaves completely differently. The usual answer people reach for is "the market is random" - which is really just an alibi for not having a model of what moved it.
There are only three things that actually move a price:
1. An event - something that hit the calendar (a rate decision, an NFP release, a CPI print).
2. A non-event - the release everyone was braced for that does NOT happen, or happens as expected and gets sold anyway.
3. Sentiment / positioning - what the crowd already believed going in, which decides how big the reaction is once the number lands.
Number 2 is the one people miss. A "boring" print with no surprise can still move price if positioning was leaned one way going in and the market needed an excuse to unwind it. That is why the surprise (actual vs forecast) usually matters more than the level of the number itself, and why two releases with an identical headline figure can produce opposite reactions depending on what was priced in beforehand.
None of this replaces reading the chart - it explains why the chart does what it does. Order flow and volume (the stuff I usually post about) tell you what is happening right now, in real time. This tells you why it is happening, and gives you a bias going in instead of reacting after the fact.
If anyone wants the fuller version (calendar mechanics, positioning/SSI, how this ties into rate decisions and the yield curve), I wrote it up in more depth here:
https://icf-market.net/education/fundamental-and-timing-analysis - twelve short lessons, free, no signup required.
Curious whether people here lean more fundamental or technical, and whether you combine the two or just pick one and ignore the other.
Linkback: https://www.forex.zone/forex-education/29/why-does-price-move-at-all-events-non-events-and-sentiment/5132/
