How long have people been trying to use charts to predict movements of Markets? The Japanese started the whole thing with their candlestick charts for rice futures circa 1500.
Beyond Candlesticks

Let's assume that you've done your homework. You've read, Beyond Candlesticks , Technical Analysis Explained , The Visual Investor , and Technical Analysis From A to Z.
The most common question is, "Where will the market go from here?"
What's the direction of the markets? Who knows? The most reliable information comes from the charts. If you trade stocks and options, you want to know charting basics. Buy and sell signals tell you when to buy and sell. Buy and sell signals must be clear to be useful. Do clear signals appear every day? Unfortunately they do not.

Consider the following quote from Martin Pring:
"The goal of the (Dow) theory is to determine changes in the primary or major movement of the market. Once a trend has been established, it is assumed to exist until a reversal is proved. Dow theory is concerned with the direction of a trend and has no forecasting value as to the ultimate duration or size of the trend.
Starting in 1897, an investor who purchased stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, DJIA, following each Dow theory buy signal , liquidated the position on sell signals, and reinvested the money on the next buy signal, would have seen the original $44 in 1897 grow to about $51,268 by January 1990. If instead the investor had held onto the original $44 investment throughout that period, the investment would have also grown, but only to about $2,500. In reality, the substantial profit earned by following the Dow theory would have been trimmed by transaction costs and capital gains taxes. Even if a wide margin for error is allowed, the investment performance using this approach would still have been far superior to the results of a buy-and-hold strategy."
Technical Analysis Explained , page 31.

Let's assume you are not a buy and holder. If you were, you would look at the long term charts and conclude one of two things which would make guessing the direction of the Market a moot point. The Market movements are cyclical. The Market always goes up, the ups minus the downs over time always have yielded an up which beats savings in banks. A glance at a ten year chart of the major indexes would indicate that now is a buy time. It appears that a good precedent has been set; S&P of almost 1600, Dow of 12,000 or so, and a Nasdaq at a whopping 5,132. An prudent long term investor might consider a chart of the Kondratieff Wave and be inclined to view the current conditions as a bottom, or if not a bottom, at least a good entry point. From this perspective, monthly stock purchases starting in the second half of 2002 don't look particularly unsound. The worst is probably over and further downturns would seem to be even better buying opportunities. The cunningly clever Kabu Sensei suggests another variation which a stock buy and holder might use under the present conditions, as of mid August, 2002; a limit buy order. Figure what the price of a stock or an index fund might be with a DJIA of 6,500 or an S&P of 650. Place the order for a price which is substantially lower than the current level and say to those big bad business titans, "Go ahead. Make my decade!" Just be patient. When the order fills, relax and wait for the DJIA of 15,000, S&P of 2,000 and Nasdaq of five or six thousand before cashing out.

Terms you probably already know:

Moving Average
Golden Cross
Japanese call the point at which the fast line crosses over the slow line upwards, a Golden Cross. It's a buy signal.
Dead Cross
Japanese call the point at which the fast line crosses over the slow line downwards, a Dead Cross. It's a sell signal.

Bollinger bands:
Bollinger bands give a trend reversal signal when the bands are violated by open and close lying outside the bands. In mid August two successive days opened and closed outside the lower Bollinger band. When you spot a violation of the lower band as in this recent example, you can confidently predict that the trend should change to the upside.

Bollinger bands recently violated August 22,23.

Wouldn't you like to see a chart from which you could easily predict Market direction?
What would be an easy chart for Market prediction? How often are you likely to see a chart as obvious as this? Unfortunately not often enough. It can't get much easier than the chart below. If you ever see a chart of an entire exchange jumping 100% within a span of 5 months, just before a elephant takes over from an mule, you should know what to do. Don't worry your head about the underlying reasons. Rampant corporate malfeasance? That's a pretty good reason, but really, who cares what the reason was? Sell stocks. Buy cheap, long, OTM puts.

Would you like to see an easier chart from which you could easily predict Market direction?
GDP usually increases between 4 and 6 percent per year. 15-20% is a good yearly increase for the S&P 500 which has profitable companies. A 300% increase in less than two years is completely unrealistic. Don't worry your head about the underlying reasons. Rampant corporate malfeasance? That's a pretty good reason, but really, who cares what the reason was? Sell stocks. Buy cheap, long, OTM puts. Three year QQQ put LEAPs bought at the peak still have about eight months to expiration!