What are your beliefs? What do you think drives markets?

Isn't supply and demand driven by sentiment? The ultimate end user will base his/her decisions not only on financial necessity, but also how they feel.

Or in other words, why do trends exist? Isn't a trend just the market manifestation of sentiment..?

Trend = supply:demand

Depends... What if they base on just PA. Or are contrarian. Or fade moves because they have the resources. Supply demand ftw!

Supply and demand depends on sentiment, if people feel positive they are willing to buy at a higher price cause they believe the price will move in the direction they want and sellers will hold out for a better price because they see the market moving in their direction. If the mood shifts negetive the buyers will want to try and pick up bargins/ pick the bottom and sellers become desperate and sell at any cost in fear of loosing to much of their profit or capital. So it is sentiment in the end that makes the market trend or consolidate at a certain price level in my opinion. And mind you it may not allways be rational as far as you could see and one can never really predict the market reaction to news.

No


We've already established that market makers ease the transition of price from one area of high activity to another area where more volume is likely to move and provide liquidity to those who want to buy at whatever price as long as it fits into their scheme.

Plus you have to consider traders who just want to get a kickback from the exchange and they will move a serious amount of weight.

I suppose this will all differ from market to market though.

I said supply and demand not buy/sell volume. As I said earlier there are many factors that can affect supply and demand.

Markets, just like the weather, are driven by Chaos Theory. Initial conditions spark things off and pre-determine what comes later, and when - The Butterfly Effect. It all appears random but it's not.
This is how I have traded for years. It's hard work and difficult and can't be automated, but it's also totally spooky.
Indicators are useless most of the time. When you can see the next turn coming and look what indicators are saying, you realise that they mostly have no meaning other than being a rear-view mirror.
What people call sentiment, supply and demand, MM behaviour etc are just responses, not causes. The cause for a rally, reversal, gap, acceleration, or consolidation was determined way before it ever started, as was the actual time when it would start and end.
OK I'm sure this sounds like balony, and especially because I'm not about to explain how to do it. You'll just have to believe me and save yourself the effort of looking elsewhere..... or not :-)
I'm not saying this is the only way to trade, of course it isn't, and for those who have a successful method, stick to it, because this way is hard graft and ideally you need two people to do it, but it is what moves the markets.
Glenn

Ummm... I'm sorry but the difference between buying and demand is absolutely massive.