Which indicators do you use and how?

[ArcticWolf]

Hi there from a trader in training.

I have been reading a lot about trading, but now I need to start doing something about it. I am curious about which indicators you use in your trades, and how you use them. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

:smart:

 

[oiltanker]

usually indicators are designed for daily charts and above. yet people use them on the 5min etc and wonder why the results are patchy.
if you use indicators use the default setting. anything else is curve fitting. if it doesn't work with the default then its not going to work long term.

 

[Claudia123]

The best indicators are your eyes. Trade what you see not what has happened.

 

[songcon]

Moved to the stock discussion subgroup

 

[tomorton]

I use exponential moving averages for trend direction confirmation and in assessing trend strength, hardly even look at anything else.

MAs are inherently lagging and so any strategy that has the condtion of a MA as a yes/no filter as part of the trading decision will suffer from late entries and regular false signals. I can live with that as I find more and more that getting the exact right entry is not key to consistent profitability - but getting a quick exit on the trades that go wrong certainly is.

Beware of whizzy flashy indicators that only help you going in.

 

[ha0dho]

After many years of expermenting with indicators all I use is 2 different ema to determine the trend. I only use this on the weekly time frame just to get a feel for trend direction but I never rely wholy on the emas I use them more as a guide.

 

[who_am_i]

I am fairly new to forex, but I have been using simple emas to help determine trends. I did buy Sniper Forex to help me confirm some things while I am learning, and I am pretty impressed with it so far.

 

[hazelj80]

usually indicators are designed for daily charts and above. yet people use them on the 5min etc and wonder why the results are patchy.
if you use indicators use the default setting. anything else is curve fitting. if it doesn't work with the default then its not going to work long term.

this is true. most of the indicators that work in stocks and commodities don't work in forex because they're just way too slow. forex is very quick. i think that certain types of indicators may work that act as a "balance beam" to speculate which way the market will head staistically. Whole/half numbers seem to work as phsycological levels as well. Combining the 2 seems to be working. These are just my observations from only one full year of live trading.