Of course. What else is there? Even if you're studying what happened just one second ago or you're watching the DOM, by the time you've placed a trade, you've used the past in an attempt to predict the future. I know that Livermore used to keep data of prices in tables. I know this because I've read How I Trade In Stocks and it's all there for everyone to see. He also watched the ticker tape and obviously picked up patterns there as well. At least that's what he said. Trading from gut decision/intuition is a losing approach in my opinion. The exception may be if you have thousands upon thousands of hours of screen time, but I'm thinking it can be better to consider another approach.