Is price action trading the most insightful(& most accurate)?

[tomorton]

You said you "only follow trends".
So what is your specific and exact definition of "TREND"?
I'm a 25 year veteran trader and not a newbie. I know what mine is but am curious when individuals say this statement, many don't it defined. Thanks in advance.

I will define what I call a trend but I don't claim that my definition makes what we all see on the same chart a trend. Its just a trend as far as my strategy is concerned. Its not a fingerprint.

For me to get long, I need to see on the D1 chart the 20EMA above the 50EMA and both sloping upwards. That's it. Reverse for downtrends.

 

[Reactive Analytics]

Understand. Nice. As long as a trader "CAN" define "THEIR" trend . . . they are half way home!

 

[S-Trader]

I will define what I call a trend but I don't claim that my definition makes what we all see on the same chart a trend. Its just a trend as far as my strategy is concerned. Its not a fingerprint.

For me to get long, I need to see on the D1 chart the 20EMA above the 50EMA and both sloping upwards. That's it. Reverse for downtrends.

This could be another "semantic" argument in play, because some traders refer to rangebound markets as being in a "sideways trend." I was never real comfortable with that term, but it's no big deal either -- semantics. And I suppose if that's your style of trading, then trading off the upper and lower bounds of that sideways range is kinda analogous to trading pullbacks/rallies in a up- or down-sloping trend... ?

 

[tomorton]

This could be another "semantic" argument in play, because some traders refer to rangebound markets as being in a "sideways trend." I was never real comfortable with that term, but it's no big deal either -- semantics. And I suppose if that's your style of trading, then trading off the upper and lower bounds of that sideways range is kinda analogous to trading pullbacks/rallies in a up- or down-sloping trend... ?

Its possible that the trends I follow can form a leg of a range on a very long time-scale but ranges are not patterns I look for or mark on the chart. I don't even seek or mark support in downtrends or resistance in uptrends, nor trend channel boundaries or trend-lines or highs and lows.

 

[tomorton]

Understand. Nice. As long as a trader "CAN" define "THEIR" trend . . . they are half way home!

Thank you.
I hold to the view that TA isn't to depict what the market will do, it is to identify what the trader will do and how he'll do it.

 

[volpri]

Yes, you have summarised the question in another way but you have focused in a specific context, price ranges. I don't trade these as it involves prediction, i.e. that price will go down although it is now going up. This is of course based on past evidence or past history and will work much of the time.

I only follow trends, and so I get long when prices are rising. This is based on current evidence and inherent market tendencies.

Range trading depends on predicting a change in behaviour of the market participants from buying to selling, although there will be no evidence that they will do this today because this is in the future. If they were already selling price would be falling and this would be a trend-following short, not a range trading short. So though you're predicting a change in behaviour, I'm not predicting any change in behaviour.

Taking the parallel position of the weather forecaster, what would you say of a forecaster who simply said the weather tomorrow will be just the same as it is today? And the weather next Friday will be just the same as the weather next Thursday? That's what I'm saying in trend-following. You'd probably say that such a weather forecaster wasn't forecasting at all. I would agree.

Anyway, I'm happy to be able to say I don't get whipsawed as I don't regard a weakness in a trend as a reversal signal, plus I trade long-term.

You are betting the market will continue doing what it is doing. So you are betting on the inertia of the market. There is merit to that. I do it too. But I also bet on the odds of patterns. I could, and sometimes do get it wrong. However, I imagine you have had trends STOP.. REVERSE.. and TAKE OUT your stop.

 

[Reactive Analytics]

Tom, I use Resistance as upside targets to long trades and Support as short side targets to short trades the same way runners or bikers use landmarks along their route.

 

[S-Trader]

Its possible that the trends I follow can form a leg of a range on a very long time-scale but ranges are not patterns I look for or mark on the chart. I don't even seek or mark support in downtrends or resistance in uptrends, nor trend channel boundaries or trend-lines or highs and lows.

Don't many trend traders look for minor support in uptrends to buy pullbacks, and minor resistance in downtrends to short rallies? I do, in combination with MAs -- which can be viewed as essentially dynamic trendlines.

I understand (now) that you don't. But that was be the analogy I was making relative to a sideways range (/"trend") trader who shorts near the top of the range, and buys near the bottom... which is what I thought Volpri was describing:

For instance, if there has been 15 or 20 bars in a sideways range and price is racing to the top of the range I am shorting on the high of the bars starting in the upper third of the range and will just keep adding as it goes up. Why? 80% of BO’s attempts of a range fail and price goes back into the range.

 

[tomorton]

Don't many trend traders look for minor support in uptrends to buy pullbacks, and minor resistance in downtrends to short rallies? I do, in combination with MAs -- which can be viewed as essentially dynamic trendlines.

I understand (now) that you don't. But that was be the analogy I was making relative to a sideways range (/"trend") trader who shorts near the top of the range, and buys near the bottom... which is what I thought Volpri was describing:

I regularly buy in an ongoing uptrend at a lower daily high. But that's not really a support level. I don't buy at lows of pull-backs.

 

[tomorton]

You are betting the market will continue doing what it is doing. So you are betting on the inertia of the market. There is merit to that. I do it too. But I also bet on the odds of patterns. I could, and sometimes do get it wrong. However, I imagine you have had trends STOP.. REVERSE.. and TAKE OUT your stop.

It rarely happens but its always a minor possibility. There are I reckon 7 things that price in a trend can do next and the least likely is reverse. But that's what stop-losses are for.