What's a good tool to determine if the market is trending or consolidated ?

Quote from HeraclitusDemo:

HughRobi: Analysts that attempt to Trade have to go through THE EXECUTION. (Where most of them get shot). hehe. :D
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Hero Demo;
:D 50 day moving average can help measure a down-trend, an up-trend;
or a sideways trend[consolodated /sideway/slop trend.]

Many years of price data recordings can help also;
some gamebirds avoid getting shot by flying 50+ mph.
Some gamebirds take note of a 50 day season [executions]:D
 
I programmed a volatility indicator that's based partly on the ATR. The ART by itself isn't a bad tool. When this indicator is rising, or high it's more likely there won't be a trend. When it's low or falling it's more likely there will be a trend. The market can switch behavior in the middle of the day. It's fairly common for the AM session to be a non-trend with the PM session to trend. No Holy Grail but a useful tool.

Pay attention to the gaps up as well, especially in a bull market. If the market gaps up high it's likely to be a buy all day market. Large gaps down can go either way. A quiet trend can develop of you can get a lot of bounces within a trend, which was the case today.
 
I find the 20,3 useful, especially in a non-trend day. If the market corrects downward after a nice move up (2 hours or more) and touches or comes close to the BB it's highly probable the market will reverse on that touch or at least give you a tradeable bounce off the 20,3 BB. On non-trend days outliers within a given time frame make good fade opps. Some number crunching is required. Simple BB watching isn't enough...imo.

Quote from Chart Lion:

Bollinger Bands are very useful in this instance.

Look for a bollinger band squeeze which is when consolidation happens, i.e. the bands are very close together. Try using a simple 20 day Bollinger with 2.0 standard deviations.

Bollinger band squeezes also signal a period before the prices regain volatility.

You can also add Bollinger Bandwidth to your charts to make it easier to define the periods of high and low volatility.

CL
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I like to try a trade or 2 in the direction i think the market is trending. If i get stopped out i wait for confirmation of said trend. Otherwise i go do something else. Im not a chop trader but thats just me.
 
Quote from ammo:

your mind is a good,it see's and here's more than a limited indicator,trust it ,when it see's correctly more often than not,trade with it using caution when wrong
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Agree. I use stochastics to enter a trade and Macd for trending. It's interesting how the mind sees and recalls past formations and applies it to the current visual, projecting a possible outcome........trust is the key word here and obviously use caution, always. :cool:
 
I think trends that are not clearly visible on the charts are best avoided. By this i mean that the higher highs and the higher lows, or vice-versa, should be clearly imprinted on the charts. The method i use to determine trends is derived from the Dow Theory. In an uptrend, if a pivot high is formed that fails to cross the last high, i get on an alert mode - time to switch gears to neutral. And a break below the last pivot low confirms that the trend has changed to negative. Indicators are lagging, and as such, using indicators to determine trend, can make us late entrants.
 
well said dan the new guy! I'm kind of confused shouldn't the question be how to determine distribution vs consolidation? I must ask myself this question 3 times a day and the answer always becomes obvious when the price moves. MP theory try to shed light on distribution vs consolidation but I'm way to dumb to understand it.
 
I draw lines under, and over the price action.

It's pretty simple to tell if a market is trending by doing that. Just remember, markets don't often trend. They randomly fluctuate most of the time.
 
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