A really slow MA on a long timeframe.
Open up a futures index chart and throw on a 300 period WMA. Color the bars based on slope.
Awesome, right? Huge swings worth thousands on a single contract.
Too bad you will get chopped out so often (a holy grail system can have losses; it just has to make money).
Back in my indicator days I tried many variations of this, different MAs, different time periods, none were profitable (reversing them wasn't profitable, either; wrap your head around that).
I tried things besides MAs, too. Bid/ask graphs, random market sentiment indicator type things, a bunch of stuff I coded up myself. They all basically gave you the same info.
I kept thinking everyone else was trying too hard. Just use a fairly slow chart (5 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever) and ride the waves.
One problem is that if the indicator is slow enough, you often won't exit a position anywhere near the maximum profit level. But you can't afford to exit too soon, like with a fixed profit target, either, because then you'll leave a lot on the table. Position scaling and/or trailing stops are not the solution to this problem.
It's one of those things that works great sometimes, but you won't know beforehand if it will work great or not (trend or chop).
Too bad it doesn't work. It'd be a great way to save on commissions. A few trades each week. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Oh well.
Open up a futures index chart and throw on a 300 period WMA. Color the bars based on slope.
Awesome, right? Huge swings worth thousands on a single contract.
Too bad you will get chopped out so often (a holy grail system can have losses; it just has to make money).
Back in my indicator days I tried many variations of this, different MAs, different time periods, none were profitable (reversing them wasn't profitable, either; wrap your head around that).
I tried things besides MAs, too. Bid/ask graphs, random market sentiment indicator type things, a bunch of stuff I coded up myself. They all basically gave you the same info.
I kept thinking everyone else was trying too hard. Just use a fairly slow chart (5 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever) and ride the waves.
One problem is that if the indicator is slow enough, you often won't exit a position anywhere near the maximum profit level. But you can't afford to exit too soon, like with a fixed profit target, either, because then you'll leave a lot on the table. Position scaling and/or trailing stops are not the solution to this problem.
It's one of those things that works great sometimes, but you won't know beforehand if it will work great or not (trend or chop).
Too bad it doesn't work. It'd be a great way to save on commissions. A few trades each week. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Oh well.
