Showing posts with label stochastic oscillator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stochastic oscillator. Show all posts

Friday, August 4, 2006

Forex Technical Indicators Revealed

The forex market is said to be one of the largest places known to the business people. Trading has become a part of man's life since time immemorial. Needless to say, it is an opportunity that provides better earnings in relation to the released investment. Hence, it is an endeavor which requires you to gain an in-depth knowledge regarding the types of technical indicators that basically prove to be really useful. By combining two or more of them, you increase the probability of obtaining a full knowledge of the steps which you need to take on as you continue with the opportunity of earning a generous profit.

Technical Indicators and their Advantage

Many of the traders are encouraged to make use of the technical indicators. Even more, the pros still trust them. How much more for a beginner like you? They are the mathematical formulas that govern the respective indicators. Studies reveal that they are very accurate too only that they don't really come up with a complete analysis. What these tools can do is to show you the tendencies in the market.

Your mere presence in the stock market suggests that you have a perfect goal and that is to earn money and generate a great deal of profit. You should not forget though that the market is volatile. Meaning, its instability paves way to a number of changes that may occur at any time. Thus, these indicators are the perfect tools that can tell you as to whether it is good enough to buy or sell commodities or securities.

As you opt to utilize the indicators, it is likewise very pertinent to remember that many of the formulas include jotting down the derivatives. This goes to show that the data is not obviously direct. That is why it is often helpful to consult more than one indicator to be able to draw a clearer picture. After all, it will never hurt to check out the accuracy of your conclusion.

Four Basic Classifications of Technical Indicators

Whether you prefer to trade forex, stocks, or other commodities, it pays off to think about obtaining a solid foundation that may serve as your guide. Again, it is very significant to pick out those which you know are already proven to work and those that you can comfortably use.

The trend indicators. Moving averages, Parabolic SAR, and MACD are just some of those that make up this group. By looking into the movement of the trends, you can decide on the level at which you can start trading.

The momentum indicators. These are considered to be the oscillating indicators and are most clear-cut in pinpointing the overbought as well as the oversold positions. Similarly, they show the signals for any new trend. Stochastics, RSI, and CCI are just some of those momentum trend indicators.

The volume indicators. The name itself tells you that the price movement is very much dependent on the volumes of the trades. Generally, the price movement which is rooted from a high volume gathers a fairly stronger signal compared to one which is inspired by the low volume. Examples of which include the force index, money flow index, ease of movement, Chaikin money flow, and many others.

The volatility indicators. They normally look into the ranges that define the volume that lies beneath the movements and the price behavior. The common examples include the average true range, Bollinger bands, and the envelopes.

There you go with the four groups of technical indicators that will steer you as you work on achieving the best of the profits from the forex market.

Friday, July 14, 2006

How To Trade With Stochastics?

The stochastic oscillator is a momentum indicator to compare the closing price of a commodity to its price range over a given time span. The idea behind this indicator is the prices tend to close near their past highs in bull markets, and near their lows in bear markets. Transaction signals can be spotted when the stochastic oscillator crosses its moving average.

Two stochastic oscillator indicators are typically calculated to assess future variations in prices, a fast (K) and slow (D). Comparisons of these statistics are a good indicator of speed at which prices are changing or the Impulse of Price.

The two Stochastics lines:
- K – Is the main line and is usually displayed as a solid line
- D – Is simply a moving average of the K and is usually displayed as a dotted line

There are two well known methods for using the K and D indicators to make decisions about when to buy or sell stocks. The first involves crossing of K and D signals, the second involves basing buy and sell decisions on the assumption that K and D oscillate.

In the first case, D acts as a trigger or signal line for K. A buy signal is given when K crosses up through D, or a sell signal when it crosses down through D. Such crossovers can occur too often, and to avoid repeated whipsaws one can wait for crossovers occurring together with an overbought/oversold pullback, or only after a peak or trough in the D line. If price volatility is high, a simple moving average of the Stoch D indicator may be taken. This statistic smoothes out rapid fluctuations in price.

In the second case, some analysts argue that K or D levels above 80 and below 20 can be interpreted as overbought or oversold. It is recommended that buying and selling be timed to the return back from these thresholds. In other words, one should buy or sell after a bit of a reversal. Practically, this means that once the price exceeds one of these thresholds, the investor should wait for prices to return back through those thresholds (e.g. if the oscillator were to go above 80, the investor waits until it falls below 80 to sell). In currencies we mainly use the Stochastic Oscillator on the 15 and 60 minute charts.

Use Stochastics in Trending market The key is when the market is trending up, we will look for oversold conditions (when the Stochastics fall below the oversold level (below 20) and rises back above the same level) to get ready to trade, and in the same way, when the market is trending down we will only look for overbought conditions (when the Stochastics rise above de overbought level (above 80) and falls back below the same level.

Use Stochastic in Trend-less market
- Buy when K falls below the oversold level (below 20) and rises back above the same level.
- Sell when K rises above de overbought level (above 80) and falls back below the same level.