How Random are we ???

In order that this does not read like some advertisement and is not overtly offensive to business and personal associates. I’ve set myself a simple rule, which shall apply to all future blogs too.
“No mention of names, brands, companies etc. with whom I’m closely associated!!!
Over the past few weeks I’ve been particularly taken by a type of chart called the candlesticks!!! It all started with the Bosses asking for close monitoring of cash and FX (Forex) positions. Just to put things in perspective, and before my mates with Finance and MBA degrees start slamming ….I’ve no prior finance experience and don’t understand a whole lot, so please pardon some amounts of b******t . Hell, a year back I was selling engines and setting up contract manufacturing bases with no inkling of what financial markets looked like.
Anyway point is, with the job at hand I had to get an outlook from our bankers on various currency pairs, take their consensus and advise on how we hold or move cash positions. The bank’s responding email and enclosed chart resulted in what I call a WTF moment (which for the benefit of the not so abusive lot is What The F***k). It was dotted with words like head-shoulder, resistance and support, retracement levels, relative strength, short positions, long positions etc. etc.!!! I didn’t understand a word and in desperation called on the friendly neighbourhood Lady Trader. Lady Trader was kind enough to oblige and over an evening of copious amount of drinks, gave me a crash course on technical trading and the use of candlesticks.
Post the initial crash course there was a lot of reading on tech trading, how it’s done, what to watch for blah blah blah!!! (Boring details) which brought me to the Fibonacci Retracement, one of the more popular tools in tech trading. In layman’s terms if on an fx, stock or index candlestick chart we consider a high point and a low point and divide the difference into ratios of 61.8%, 38.2%,23.6% and throw in a 50% the price movement changes direction at these levels. Well… more or less!!! I do not know why…if anyone reading finds out then please let me know too.
The reading gave rise to questions, calling for another round of drinks yesterday, marginally tipping the balance however was the fact that the tab would be picked up by Lady Trader’s expense account. Please don’t be under the impression that this was all fun and no work and that this blog has no point. There is a point. Anyway between cocktails Lady Trader explained that candlesticks essentially represent the mood of the market or what could be broadly called a behavioral pattern. Traders try and understand these behavioral patterns and determine entry and exit points. After a few more indicator discussions and five cocktails each we called it a day!!!!
What stuck to me was the remark about behavioral patterns. Nature evidently relies on these Fibonacci ratios to maintain balance, starting from atoms to bees to rabbits to sunflowers and so on and so forth. Financial markets too for some reason follow these ratios. But aren’t financial markets essentially people buying and selling and their behavioral pattern. To convince myself I tried imposing these ratios on certain goods which closely mirror GDP and consumer spending across a 10yr timeframe, and believe me was shocked!!! It was a WTF moment!!!
The commodities quite closely followed the pattern. This brings up the title question:
“How random are we?? “
Are we random at all or are we programmed by nature’s grand design, to follow specific patterns???? What about free will !!! Be as you want to be !!! etc. etc.