Trend Trading Indicator

8. Apr.

This trend trading indicator uses multiple different custom formulas to identify market trends as well as identify when the market is moving sideways. It has a master trend that will show you the trend using the color of the candles and then there are multiple different types of entry and confluence signals that will appear as different chart shapes above or below the candles to inform you about when to enter a trade and how strong the trend is so you know whether to hold a position longer or get out. There is also a panel at the bottom of the chart that shows you the trend strength for 5 different timeframes so you can easily identify the short and long term trends and scan through charts quickly to find markets with the strongest trends.

The indicator can be customized to fit your trading style by adjusting the timeframes for the master trend, which timeframes affect signals, turning on or off the various entry & confluence signals, turning on or off ranging market filters and more. It can be adjusted to react quickly for intraday trading or use long timeframes for swing trading or only trading when the market is in a strong long term trend.

The indicator also has a built in trend direction value that can be sent to other indicators to be used as a trend filter as well by setting the source value on an external indicator to use the trend direction value from this indicator. This is useful for preventing signals from coming in on other indicators when they go against the trend that this indicator has identified according to the settings it is configured with.

How To Use This Indicator Properly

This indicator is designed to only give signals when the market is trending and filter out the sideways price action for you. Due to this, depending on the timeframe settings you use, there may be extended periods where there are no signals because the market is going sideways. You can adjust your timeframe settings to react faster or slower by lowering the timeframes used and turning off some of the higher timeframes or use all of the timeframes available and only get signals when the market is in a strong long term trend for the safest trades.

The indicator uses a master trend that needs to show a trend before any other confluence signals can come in. The master trend will show up by coloring the candles blue when the trend is bullish or orange when the trend is bearish according to the settings you have chosen. When the market is not trending, the candles will be colored grey. This helps to keep you out of trades when the market is going sideways. You will only be able to see the master trend by using the colored candles though, so make sure to turn the chart’s candle coloring off so it doesn’t override the indicator candle coloring.

Once a trend has been established, then other signals will begin to show up if the trend is strong and various parameters are met. The indicator includes the following types of signals:

• Master Trend Signals
  
• Strong Trend Buy & Sell Signals
  
• Pullback During Strong Trend Signals
  
• Strong All Timeframe Trend Signals
  
• Trend Strength Score Signals
  

The indicator also has multiple filters you can use to customize the master trend to allow more or less signals to come in. The more filters you have on, the better and more likely the signals are to be winners because it will only give signals when there are very strong trends on all timeframes. If you want a lot of signals for intraday scalping, you can turn off most of the filters and just use lower timeframes for the master trend settings. The following filters can be used to customize the trend parameters:

• Signals Only Allowed In Direction Of Timeframes 4 & 5
  
• Trend Of Timeframe #1 Used For Master Trend Signals
  
• Trend Of Timeframe #2 Used For Master Trend Signals
  
• Trend Of Timeframe #3 Used For Master Trend Signals
  
• Trend Of Timeframe #4 Used For Master Trend Signals
  
• Trend Of Timeframe #5 Used For Master Trend Signals
  
• No Master Trend Signals If This Timeframe Is Ranging - #1
  
• No Master Trend Signals If This Timeframe Is Ranging - #2
  
• No Master Trend Signals If This Timeframe Is Ranging - #3
  

Make sure to keep all trend timeframes in order from 1-5 for best results, even if they are turned off. The indicator is programmed to compare each timeframe to the next one, so keeping the timeframes in order will give you proper calculations. For example: timeframes 1-5 should be 15, 60, 240, 1D, 1W or 240, 1D, 1W, 1M, 3M and so on.

The indicator has alerts for bullish and bearish versions of each type of signal so you can get notified when a chart is trending strongly.

Market Hours Available To Use The Indicator On

The indicator works on stocks, crypto, forex and futures markets and other markets that have the same hours, you just need to select the hours that the market you are trading has in the main indicator settings to get the correct signals. There are options for stock hours(6.5 hours a day, 5 days per week), futures/forex hours(23 hours a day, 5 days per week) and crypto hours(24 hours a day, 7 days per week). Just select the correct option in the dropdown menu and the indicator will calculate based on those hours.

Master Trend Settings

The master trend is calculated using Timeframes 1-5, the setting for whether to use timeframes 1-5 for signals, ranging market filters 1-3 and only allow signals in the direction of timeframes 4 & 5. These settings will affect how the overall trend is calculated, which has to be trending in order for any confluence signals to come in.

Set timeframe 1 to a higher timeframe than your chart is set to. For example if you trade the 1 minute or 5 minute chart, timeframe #1 needs to be set to something higher than your chart so 15, 60 or 240. Then set timeframes 2-5 to be one timeframe higher than the previous one. So if timeframe 1 is 60, then timeframe 2 should be 240 and so on. Make sure to do this even if you do not turn on each timeframe to be used for master trend signals as the higher timeframes will still affect the confluence signals.

Turn on or off the toggle for each timeframe if you want the master trend to use. Keeping just lower timeframes on will give more signals for short term trends and leaving all of the timeframes on will only give signals when all of the timeframes are trending. I recommend keeping timeframes 1 & 2 on at the very least and then turning on or off timeframes 3-5 based on how many signals you want and how strong you want the trend to be in order for signals to be given.

Ranging Market Filters

The indicator has parameters to detect if the market is ranging or moving sideways on each timeframe and will show this by coloring the trend strength score in the bottom panel grey for that timeframe. When the market is ranging, it is best to not trade because there is no established trend. Use these filters to increase the probability of the master trend and confluence trend signals being correct and moving in the direction of the trend.

If you turn on the ranging market filters, you will not get any signals if the market is detected as ranging on any of the timeframes you have turned on for the ranging market filters.

You can use 1, 2 or all 3 ranging market filters to dial in the indicator to your preference. Make sure to backtest it and look at historical data to see how this will affect the indicator and choose what settings work best for your style of trading.

Signals Only Allowed In Direction Of Timeframes 4 & 5

If you only want to make sure you are trading in the direction of the long term trend, turn this setting on. It will prevent the indicator from giving any signals that are not in the same direction as the long term trends and increase your probability for winning trades.

This setting allows you to quickly filter out any noise that you will get from lower timeframe trends that are not in the same direction as the long term trends and helps to ensure you stick to the overall trend. Markets will usually make much faster and larger moves in the direction of the overall trend and have high resistance, choppy moves when going in the opposite direction, so this will help you avoid getting into those trades even if you don’t have timeframes 4 & 5 turned on in the master trend timeframe settings.

Strong Buy & Sell Signals

When the master trend detects a trending market and the trend is strong on all 5 timeframes, the indicator will show crosses on the chart meaning these are great entry points to get into the market with positions in the direction of the trend. There are 3 levels of these signals and will show as small crosses, medium crosses and large crosses. The larger the cross is, the stronger the trend is and is more likely to continue the trend.

Use these strong buy & sell signal crosses as entry points and place your stop loss at the most recent major pivot. Then trail your stop loss with the trade to lock in profits.

Pullbacks During Strong Trend Signals

When there is a strong trend on timeframes 3-5 and a pullback on timeframes 1 & 2, then move back in the direction of the higher timeframe trend, this will fire a signal to enter a trade in the direction of the trend. These are excellent entries since the market has pulled back, allowing you to have a good entry with low potential drawdown.

These signals will appear as label tag or price tag looking signals. Use these for your entries and then place a stop loss just beyond the most recent major pivot and trail your stop loss as the trade moves in your favor to lock in profits.

Strong All Timeframe Trend Signals

When the trend is strong on all timeframes that you have set to use for master trend signals, the indicator will show circles/dots on the chart above or below the candles. There is also a second type of strong trend calculation that it uses that will detect a strong trend in a slightly different way and that formula will paint a background color on the chart as extra confluence. When the background color and dots show up at the same time, that means both formulas are showing strong trends.

Use these dots and background coloring to confirm your position and continue to hold it for more gains. Strong trends typically continue in the same direction so use these signals as extra confluence to hold your position and stay in the trade.

Trend Strength Score Signals

Each timeframe will have a trend strength score calculated. If you turn the visuals on in the master trend timeframe settings, they will show up as an oscillator in the bottom panel. It will show red for bearish trends and green for bullish trends and grey when the market is ranging. It will also show a label next to each timeframe telling you the score out of the maximum score for that timeframe.

Pay attention to these as they will give you a very quick way to read the long term and short term trends. When all timeframes are trending strongly, the background will paint red or green to notify you of strong trends that you can trade.

When the long term trends agree, but short term trends are going against the long term, look for the short term trends to reverse and use those areas as entry positions for longer trades in the direction of the overall trend. Doing this really helps to identify possible reversals and keep you from getting into those types of trades too early.

Timeframes The Indicator Can Be Used On

The indicator is setup to be used on the following chart timeframes: 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute, 15 minute, 30 minute, 1 hour, 2 hour, 4 hour, 6 hour, 8 hour, 12 hour and 1 day charts.

If your chart is set to a different timeframe than the ones listed above, it will not calculate properly, so make sure your chart is on the correct timeframe.

Markets The Indicator Can Be Used On

The indicator has 3 modes for various market hours. The type of market doesn’t matter, what matters is how many hours that market is open for. Almost all markets fall under 3 types of opening hours so we have provided the ability for the indicator to calculate correctly on all 3 types of market hours. The hours it can use are: stocks(6.5 hours per day, 5 days per week), crypto(24 hours per day, 7 days per week) and futures/forex(23 hours per day, 5 days per week).

You will need to update this setting from the dropdown at the top of the indicator settings to match the chart that you are on for it to calculate correctly.

Filtering Other Indicators Using The Trend Direction Of This Indicator

The indicator has a built in trend direction value that can be sent to other indicators and used as a filter. By setting an input.source() value on other indicators that are on the same chart as this indicator, you can set that indicator to do or not do whatever you want when this trend indicator shows a trend or not.

The name of the source you can use on your external indicator is called Trend Direction To Send To External Indicators. The values it sends are as follows: 0 when there is no master trend direction, 1 when the master trend is bullish and -1 when the master trend is bearish.

By using this source, you can prevent other indicators from giving sell signals during up trends, prevent other indicators from giving buy signals during down trends and prevent other indicators from giving any signals when the market is ranging or not showing an established trend.

Alerts Available To Use

The indicator has alerts for bullish versions as well as bearish versions of each type of signal available. Use these alerts to notify you of strong trends on markets that you may not have the charts up for at all times but still want to trade.

Versionshinweise

Fixed label on/off button bug.
Small update to smooth out and improve trend calculations.