Do Trendlines work?

[tradersaavy]

Quote from They:

Trendlines as support?
Sure, if enough traders are looking at them.



They

Trendlines are like natural rhythms of buying and selling. Sometimes this rhythm is so "perfect" that you can see it in the form of a line.

You do not need the self fulfilling rule of everyone watching and acting upon the same thing for trendlines to show their face.

 

[martys]

I think Marty Schwartz does a lot of trend lines on charts... He said he never got thru a TA book cover to cover.

I had read part of Perry Kaufman's "A Short Course in Technical Trading." I thought it was good at the time... I think I might try to finish it. He tries to take the witchcraft out of TA so he explained trend lines away as slope or rate of change. It might be easier to backtest the generalized case (using rate of change) anyway.

 

[hans37]

Quote from Walther:

No, it is more like saying " You have no clue " .

If trend lines really represent the reality of a future market price (support , resistance , whatever) then why don't you just take the derivative of the slope of the line and call it a day?


Why don't you graph a sinusoidal wave out of the lower lows and higher highs?


Does that sound ridiculous. If it does I wonder why?

 

[madmaxer]

The fact is, it does not ALL THE TIME.

And also market does not have trendline allways. Specially if you are a day trader and you want ot go with trendline only , you will not trade every day eventhogh you might have a good volitility.

 

[TriPack]

One honest question:

How many of the lines on your charts were drawn in realtime and without the benefit of hindsight? In other words, how many of those lines were drawn while the chart was at the far right of the screen?

Quote from capamunt:

Hi,

And finally, if ....


Salut

 

[risktaker]

I believe trendlines, like moving averages worked for many years in simpler times. Nowadays they're being tested and re-tested so many times that their usefulness is close to going out the the window along with the majority of the other "TA" indicators. Let's face it. There's nothing new under the sun. We all study and know the same shit. Things today are *very* efficient/competitive and the times that a trendline *works* just about equals the times it does not!
Does that mean they're useless? Well it depends more on the instrument you're trading than the technique you use. Always did, always will.

 

[capamunt]

Quote from TriPack:

One honest question:

How many of the lines on your charts were drawn in realtime and without the benefit of hindsight? In other words, how many of those lines were drawn while the chart was at the far right of the screen?

Hi,

The first image

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=734289 was made at the midle at the session.

Allways when I made a graphic I put it. I don't know whar are the dif. of time. Now at my home are 9:58 at the morning.

In the graphics you see the time:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=735903

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=735904

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=735913

And this morning I see the situation as very interesting because for one hand it is possible to imagine we are in the 2º impulse or this 2º impulse start at > 10260.2.

Salut

 

[50 cent]

Quote from tradersaavy:

Trendlines are like natural rhythms of buying and selling. Sometimes this rhythm is so "perfect" that you can see it in the form of a line.

You do not need the self fulfilling rule of everyone watching and acting upon the same thing for trendlines to show their face.

i second both of these notion.

Quote from TriPack:

One honest question:

How many of the lines on your charts were drawn in realtime and without the benefit of hindsight? In other words, how many of those lines were drawn while the chart was at the far right of the screen?

i use them in real time all the time, every trading day, on every time frame, from the monthly chart to the 30seconds chart, with everything in the middle.

 

[John47]

I use them real time quite a bit, although context is extremely important. Sometimes intraday w/ 5 or 15 minute I'll be more likely to draw two possible trendlines (because often, by the time you identify a picture perfect one, its finished).....and realtime, trade off tests or breaks combined w/ other stuff.

 

[John47]

http://elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=733499


from my journal, few days ago in the ES. I traded alot (for me) that day, I think one entry was off a test of one of those trendlines. Other than that, I mostly eyeballed them and kept a stop below a break of one of them.