WHY DO YOU USE INDICATORS THAT...

[TheRumpledOne]

http://youtu.be/ER-QKWD6fp8

[newscalper]

Great video. Spot on

[Bunny]

I have a question- if moving averages are so helpful, why aren't more traders successful? Moving averages won't tell you where price is going, no indicator does. Every platform has MA's and yet very small percentages of people can make a living from trading.

[dchappy]

I see MA's as kind of a "bendable " horizontal line .

And use them as triggers for entries and exits ,

In that way they are very helpful ........

[MightyOne]

MightyOne uses these types of indicators to impress women...so I guess they do have "some" value

The 2 SMA is useful because it looks (nearly) the same on multiple data shifts; where as candle charts of the same period but different shifts can look extremely different from chart to chart.

A candle chart is probably the worst way to view price action because you are forced to either use multiple charts in tandem or trust random events (opens/closes) to place trades.

The best way to view data, IMOP, is to define and filter out irrelevant data, from small charts, and then use what remains to construct a chart.

Examples of this would be constructing P&F charts from a custom ZigZag formula or Trend Stacker where every bar represents a trend:

And yes, these charts do impress the ladies!

[PebbleTrader]

Think about the Close...

It's really quite an arbitrary number. If you have a 5 minute chart than it's whatever the market last tick was at that 5 minute point in time. Or if you create a custom M2 chart...It's rather meaningless, however it does help us out, but there is a better way.

I create a "synthetic close". I analyze all the ticks within a period and than sort those ticks in code so that I can than find the 50th percentile. That value, which becomes the synthetic close, more accurately describes what the gest of the move was.

If you create a line chart of a synthetic close, you get a much smoother looking trendline than if you just used arbitrary closes ever X minutes which creates a much more jagged looking chart.

[dojirock]

do tell PB.

do you mean as an example taking a 12 min time span and all tick values totaled to give a sum/50.... representing a point. then on to the next 12 min span....??

If im close, to what your talking about I have been working on such a thing and like the appearances of what it could potentially produce.

do you have an example in its simplest form?
visual...
doji

[newscalper]

Think about the Close...

It's really quite an arbitrary number. If you have a 5 minute chart than it's whatever the market last tick was at that 5 minute point in time. Or if you create a custom M2 chart...It's rather meaningless, however it does help us out, but there is a better way.

I create a "synthetic close". I analyze all the ticks within a period and than sort those ticks in code so that I can than find the 50th percentile. That value, which becomes the synthetic close, more accurately describes what the gest of the move was.

If you create a line chart of a synthetic close, you get a much smoother looking trendline than if you just used arbitrary closes ever X minutes which creates a much more jagged looking chart.

If you're gong down that route, why use periods at all? Why not renko or 50 tick charts etc?

[PebbleTrader]

The synthetic close is much harder to manipulate...

[PebbleTrader]

"If you're gong down that route, why use periods at all? Why not renko or 50 tick charts etc?"

The tick data is always being logged in realtime, thus an offline chart using a period converter or tick can be used to create the history file, your choice.