Quote from Mercor:
A good chartist can closely place where RSI is, ADX, MACD are by chart only. Not until that happens will you be successful trading without physical indicators.
I Very strongly disagree with this.
I don't use ANY indicators at all making intra day trades - and the only MA I will look at is the 200 Daily, only because it recieves so much attention. Other than that it is all about reading the structure of the market.
It IS possible to make intra-day trades without indicators or rule based entry criteria - infact, in my opinion, it is the BEST way. The indicator vs. no indicator debate has been done a thousand times over, not going to go into it here. All I will say is that you should enter trades based on what you
believe about markets - what causes them to move and how they do it.
Instead of thinking about where an indicator might be, I ask myself questions like
"What is the sentiment likely to be today?"
"What are the dominant themes in the market, and are they continuing?"
"Where are we in relation to significant prices?"
"what kind of market are we in - trending, range bound etc..?"
"Where is the majority of the volume?"
"Is the economic data consistent with the current trends? How does the market react to it?"
"Where do I think the market wants to go?" (ok obvious)
and so on...
I am not indicator bashing, I know that some people can make alot of money using them. What I will say is that the lower timeframe you go, the more nimble you need to be in your views; and the lower timeframe you go, the easier it is to confuse meaningful (tradeable) information with the general transfer of risk that markets exist for (i.e. noise). For me, rule based indicator systems are both un-nimble (??) and and mix up good information with not so good information.
** I trade futures intra day using these techniques, alongside inter market / fundamental analysis. Don't have the experience to talk about
trading single name stocks. Do trade other instruments on longer timeframes.