Actually, yes. I've worked with beginners for a number of years now, and the amount they have to unlearn is far greater than anything they've learned that is of value. To a large extent, this is due to the fact that most writers of books have an agenda of some sort, e.g., a "system" or "strategy" they want to push (you may find their names attached to certain patterns or strategies). But there's also the fact that the beginner doesn't know very much (if he did, he would likely not be reading all these books).
On the other hand, the material that is available from the professional organizations such as the CME, or CBOT, or NYSE or whatever are really quite good. They won't tell you at what price to buy GE, but they'll explain the basics. The Wall Street Journal used to put out a very good "book" for beginners and may still do so.
But watching price move in real time will at least give you a better idea of what questions to ask. If you're told what to look for going in, then you will already have formed a bias, and if that bias turns out to be inaccurate, you'll find it more difficult to get rid of than herpes (or so I've heard).
As to the indicators, again, no, or at least not until you have some sense of how price moves under varying sets of conditions. If you're in a hurry, you can follow somebody else's system with their indicators and their patterns and their whatever, and you might find success with all of this. But I wouldn't bet on it.
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