I'd be most grateful if you could also forward this message to any UK academics you may know who have done some work in the area of Technical Analysis. Thanking you in advance for any help. In other words that all hopes, fears and knowledge, including reasonable expectation, is discounted or incorporated in the current price. As they believe that price is all that matters - they record and keep track of it. The best way to forecast future price movements is to analyze the patterns that can be seen in past movements.
History repeats itself.
They are more interested in the fact that a price breaks its historical support level than the reason for it. They look for unusual volumes of trading and breakouts, rather than the fundamental factors behind the market. They say that a price reflects the consensus of everyone in the market. They look at movement of the herd, and believe in its statistical regularity. They are only concerned with price, time and volume.