How do you determine trend direction?

[Mtrader]

The chart I posted on page 4 simply had multiple up moves and down moves in sequence. There was no trend.

Other instruments may very well be suited for intraday trend following or at other time frames, but it's simply not a good idea for the ES.

I don't agree, there were several trends that day. The only problem is that most people don't see them, or at least much too late in hindsight so that they cannot take any profit on it anymore. Successful daytrading is very difficult and almost no traders are able to trade it profitable.
Trend does not mean they have to be bigger than a 3-10 points move. Trends exist in all sizes. It up to you to find the optimal overall trend. But also to know which subtrends to skip. Each move that day was a trend.

 

[Laissez Faire]

 

[Laissez Faire]

I don't agree, there were several trends that day. The only problem is that most people don't see them, or at least much too late in hindsight so that they cannot take any profit on it anymore. Successful daytrading is very difficult and almost no traders are able to trade it profitable.
Trend does not mean they have to be bigger than a 3-10 points move. Trends exist in all sizes. It up to you to find the optimal overall trend. But also to know which subtrends to skip. Each move that day was a trend.

It's meaningless to talk of a 3 point trend or even a 5 point trend. Where do you enter on a such a move? What's your risk? What's your reward?

The whole point of trend is that it's a sustained direction up or down and that you can profit from recognizing it and enter on adverse movement to that sustained direction with the expectation that the trend persists. That's trend following.

As a day trader you should rather focus on the fact that the market is simply a series of up moves and down moves in various sizes. Some days more. Some days less. And some days a lot less. Focus then instead on learning to recognize where these moves start and where they reverse instead of trying to follow a trend that most of the time don't even exist or certainly don't persist.

 

[Mtrader]

It's meaningless to talk of a 3 point trend or even a 5 point trend. Where do you enter on a such a move? What's your risk? What's your reward?

The whole point of trend is that it's a sustained direction up or down and that you can profit from recognizing it and enter on adverse movement to that sustained direction with the expectation that the trend persists. That's trend following.

As a day trader you should rather focus on the fact that the market is simply a series of up moves and down moves in various sizes. Some days more. Some days less. And some days a lot less. Focus then instead on learning to recognize where these moves start and where they reverse instead of trying to follow a trend that most of the time don't even exist or certainly don't persist.

To proof my point I should give information I don't want to give. Theoretically the perfect trendfollowing would be to take all the tops and the bottoms. Taking tops and bottoms is the ultimate form of trendfollowing.
But almost nobody can enter in these areas, that's the problem. If you succeed in doing it the story becomes completely different.

 

[Mtrader]

When I see your analysis it is clear that what you do is not working for daytrading. So daytrading is not the problem, but your tradeplan is.
I also said it was my second short already. I did not go long after my first short as the trend was short and the bounce back had not enough potential and bad risk/reward to go long. You have to know which move to take and which one not. And that went clearly wrong for you.

 

[wrbtrader]

Anybody can identify a trend in hindsight (after the fact).

The question the OP was really asking is how to identify a trend in real-time ? As someone has stated...you must first define your rules of what a trend is for you while knowing others out there will be using different trend rules...while all have their own rules for identifying a trend.

The problem is this, after identifying a trend in real-time, there's not a guarantee it will continue as a trend after the identification. Thus, your real-time trend analysis may be correct but it still can change after the analysis.

Here's the tricky part of that question by the OP. I've seen many here at ET ask that exact same question and they were not trend continuation traders. In contrast, they were trend reversal traders asking the question in an awkward way or a range trader looking for ranges that develop after a trend with tops/bottoms in the range.

Whatever the rules being used to identify a trend...there's that cloud in the sky called market context that's needed to go with any type of analysis. We all know what happens when everybody looks at clouds in the sky...we each see a different picture and are even manipulated into seeing something that's different from what we originally saw just because someone else expressed their artistic view of the picture.

Simply, something that's not a trend to one person...it is in fact a trend to someone else.

That's the art of trading even while each trader is using objective rules different from each other.

 

[FreakofNature]

Trend determination does not matter too much, recognizing the S/Rs does, and observing the price action around S/R matters even more, trend is only good for hindsight gurus.

 

[Simples]

Talking about intraday trend seem to be nonsense, when considering the seemingly random levels Open may start the day in equities and what may follow..

When real trend-following traders/investors talk about trends, they talk about moves of +-20% and beyond. Sometimes, very rarely, it can be 10x. Of course, this takes time. Not for impatient and fearful people..

That someone may consider something an intraday "trend" for especially liquid instruments is cute, but is rarely as beautiful as the few days it all clicks. So it seems talking about intraday "trend-trading" is non-sense, except for a few hindsight samples.

The point of trend-trading, really, is to stick with the trend, not jump over board when the day ends. So you could, and maybe should, say trend-trading and intraday/daytrading are two completely orthogonal concepts.

FeakofNature: Not interested in arguing here, but this really means in a real trend, SR, is just a blip on the radar for a briefest moment of time, or more accurately, many more blipps in one direction rather than the other..

 

[speedo]

Reading these posts illustrate why most people can't trade.

 

[qxr1011]

I'm still anxiously waiting to learn what the trend was on the chart I posted from the trend following crowd

in order to show you where is the trend on the chart, how it's defined etc etc, someone should expose to you (and the whole forum) a lot of proprietary info

what for?

just to prove a point?

you will be waiting for a long time...