The Title of the thread is âIs the trend really your friendâ so I will first respond to that.
Yes, trends are your friend, if, you know how to identify them and trade them. Since we are traders, not investors, we focus on shorter term trends and use longer term trends to further direct our trades.
For a simple example: If a stock you are trading is trending up in a daily/5 min chart, you may use the trend lines to identify buys at the bottom of the trend channel and sells at the top. While doing this you check longer term charts; such as, weekly, monthly, 3 months, etc. In the weekly/hourly chart you see key resistance directly ahead so you may elect to sell there, buy again if it beaks out from the weekly trend, or sell short if the trend reverses.
While following trends alone may be successful for others, I feel that using trends along with key resistance points, good indicators, confirmation from the General Markets, Sector strength, and stock fundamentals is the most successful way of making a trend friendly.
Some people have a natural ability to see trends and trade them, but they should be useful to anyone who really wants to apply them.
I am not a Guru, nor do I wish to present myself as one. Trends work for me for equity trading, as they do for many other people.
Quote from tradingbug:
There are 3 types of trends; up, down, and lateral. Decipher which one the market is in and trade accordingly.
Buy on dips in up trends, short on rallys in downtrends and sit out at first during lateral. Most traders lose their shorts during lateral trends. My level of trading is only in one direction during lateral trends. Otherss, are able to trade both directions during lateral trends and really clean up.
The Daily INDU has been in an up trend/lateral leg since 7-8. 8-5 marks a change in trend for me. These longer trends then ripple on through the faster timeframe trends.
This will probably not help anyone since you guys are talking about angels, leprauchauns, pins, and ivyleaguers and all the other nonpertinent stuff to trading and its corresponding trends.
I concur.