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The Trend Really is Your Friend How many times have you heard the saying "The trend is your friend." Most likely more times that you've wanted to and if all you had to do is follow the trend to make money there would be a lot more successful traders. The saying really is true, but it's not that simple. There can be many different trends in different time frames, so which one do you use? Here is what I suggest. What I am going to show you is for intra-day trading. However, you can use the concept for swing-trading or long-term investing. Simply change the time frames used. First, understand that is no best time frame to use. It's a choice, there are many and none will be perfect providing you with what will work all the time. Those of you searching for a trading method will hear about using minute charts ranging from 1-minute to as high as a 240-minute chart and anything in between. Charts can also be viewed in seconds of time. They can also be view in Ticks, which is an activity based chart. This can be useful for viewing overnight or pre-market activity when trading volume is low. Then there is also range based charts, which create bars that are all the same range from high to low. There may be other types, but these are the main types used. All of them manipulate the same data to expand or contract it, so make a choice what you'll use and stay with it. Getting caught up in a search for the best type and for the best setting will put you on a never-ending quest for that Holy Grail. Don't do it. Okay, hear is my suggestion that I have taught to many traders for you to consider. Use the 60-minute time frame as the primary trend for your intra-day bias. The definition of an uptrend is higher pivot highs and higher pivot lows. A downtrend, lower pivot highs and lower pivot lows. If a prior pivot low in an uptrend is violated the trend is no longer up since the definition of an uptrend no longer exists and vice-versa for a downtrend. I am going to use a 20-period moving average as a "visual aid" to speed up the analysis here. This helps when scanning many charts quickly to simply view if prices are above or below the moving average. If above the moving average, think long and if below think short. If the moving average is intersecting through the middle of prices back and forth it would indicate that there is no trend, so stand aside. Very simple. Think you can do this? Once you have your bias from the 60-minute time frame, wait for setups that you have defined as such in the 5-minute time frame to enter. For example, if the prices on the 60-minute time frame are below the 20-MA and trending lower, a 5-minute Pristine Breakdown (PBO) or a Pristine Sell setup (PSS) would be taken as a short-sale and vice-versa for a 60-minute uptrend. The price pattern on the 60-minute chart is not important to us for entries. Those come from the 5-minute time frame. It's the trend we are interested in on the 60. Now I am going to show you how to know what that is without having to look at the 60-minute time frame. You may find this helpful since you will be looking at less information; one chart. Here is how to do that. As you recall, I said we would use the 20-MA on the 60-minute chart as a visual aid. What we are going to do is put a moving average on the 5-minute chart that is the equivalent of the 60-minute 20-MA. Here is how to do that. There are twelve 5-minute bars that make up one 60-minute bar. For that reason, we are going to multiple the 20-MA by twelve, which gives us a 240-period moving average. View a 60-minute time frame with a 20-MA and then look at a 240-MA on the 5-minute. You will see that they are virtually the same and end in the same place or very close to it. Here is the plan. When the 20-MA is under the 240-MA and trending lower on the 5-minute time frame take short setups. When the 20-MA is above the 240-MA and trending higher on the 5-minute time frame take long setups. Be aware of prior support and resistance areas and more importantly the lack thereof. These will affect turning points within the trend or allow prices to trend. Greg Capra President & CEO Pristine Capital Holdings, Inc.
