I have been trading for while now and my strategy has changed over time, I use to rely a lot on trading indicator but overtime I came to the realisation that they just reflect what’s already showing on the charts. I now trade with no indicators and I have found that it provides me with a more clarity than ever before
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Maybe… MA is a very important indicator. It is really important. Keep using it until you find a very suitable strategy that fits your personality. MA is useful when it is used in High TFs.
Of course, it’s useful! But don’t rely on only the moving average! It can be a parameter to understand the quality of any entry position, but you can’t take the final decision based on only the technical tools!
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Yes as above I like 200 Ma over larger timeframe s
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Yes, it’s helpful to me. I usually use MA 20, 100 and 200.
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It’s flawed insofar as all indicators are, but it’s generally the only indicator I use. I find it v helpful for support and resistance levels, particularly if the MA doesn’t agree, or is a bit outside of, the lines I have plotted myself. I use 20, 50, 100 and 200. I’m not sold on cross-over signs, but that might be a question of what I’m doing rather than the indicator.
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Hi @Panda_Forex ! I’m not really sure, to be honest - my use of it just evolved organicaly cos it was one of the default ones on my platform. I just find that it’s a good partner to the very tight 20MA and the longer term 100 MA. I sometimes do quite alot of frequent trades in smaller timeframes and don’t always want to wait for a longer range signal. Even if a trend is going to continue all the way to, say, the 100 MA, the chances are it’ll have a little wobble at the 50 where you might be able to make a bit of a profit.
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Are you using moving average crossover trading strategy? I think, moving average crossover strategy is so much confusing during the live trading time!
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@RinTakano, I use MA in case catching up for a big trend, I sometime use moving average crossover trading strategy as well.
MA crossovers are easy to find and seem logical. But in practice they are very unreliable indications of immediate future price action. Its more that the price trend causes the MA’s to cross rather than the MA’s cross and show that price is now going to continue trending. Their performance is flattered by the statistical fact that trends continue most of the time.
Which means they give poor entry signals and terrible exit signals.
Are you including or excluding MA’s as an indicator?
MA’s are useful but in a very limited way because they are a very simple tool. All they do is just provide a smoothing technique to highlight what is the dominant direction of price during a defined period of price movement.
Like any indicator, if you study how it is formed from a mathematical formula then you can understand what it is capable of telling you about price - and what its limitations are, too.
For example, using multiple MA’s with different periods can demonstrate that near term price movements are generally moving higher or lower compared with earlier price movements.
But if you then add another dimension to this by saying that when two MA’s cross it means price is going to continue further then you are adding a purpose to these MA’s that is not actually built into their formulas. What we are actually doing in with crossovers is resorting to comparisons with historic occurences that suggest that whenever a certain pair of MA’s cross the price has continued in the same direction. There is no predictive aspect to MA crossovers other than this historic comparison.
MA’s and price are the same thing because MA’s are calculated from price. So whatever price does will be mirrored in the MA movement but with a lag factor due to the fact that it is an average. And that is all an MA is!
The only two reasons I can think of why a certain MA might seem to act as a support/resistance is 1) because it is widely watched by many technical analysts, which provides a kind of self-fulfillment in the near term when so many act at the same time, and 2) markets do tend to have a general comfortable rate of movement in any direction and any acceleration beyond that rate is exceptional and eventually leads to an overbought/oversold situation and participation exhaustion followed by profit-taking and a slowdown back to the comfort level. If a certain MA reflects that comfort rate of change in price then it can appear to act as support/resistance.
Of course, MA’s come in all sorts of types and formulas and can look very different on a chart. But their function is usually the same and usually only attempt to provide quicker and/or more accurate images of what is going on.
However, like any indicator or other TA technique, it cannot tell you what is going to happen next - it can only tell you what is perhaps more likely to happen next based on th assumption that whatever is happening in the present is likely to continue in the near future - and even when it is correct it cannot tell you how long it will continue for…
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Yup, this right here.
The gold right here. This needs a bummer sticker.
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MA is definitely one of many major and useful indicator so if you are doing technical analysis. I would definitely suggest it.
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It is also worth remembering that MA’s are not just used simply as lines. They are also the basis of the structure of many well-known indicators that are widely used by retail and professionals alike. Some typical examples are:
Bollinger Bands, MACD and Ichimoku.
So the question is somewhat more complex than just “are MAs helpful or useless”. I think the only generic answer to that question is: “It depends…” 
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MAs are good for detecting trending and consolidating markets. And nothing more.
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MAs are great to get a feel for the market. Looking at EMA 200 and maybe EMA 100 shows you more or less, if we’re in strong uptrend or downtrend (if you have trouble seeing it on clear chart 
)
I find MAs very useful for extending existing indicators. You can calculate moving average on most of indicators and try to look for new signals. eg. RSI MA(RSI) crossover? Or short MA(RSI) vs long MA(RSI) crossovers. If base indicator crosses it’s MA it can mean something
MAs are used generally to smoothen things. For quite some time i used EMA(4) vs EMA(100) crossover scalping entries (not great, but not as bad as two longer MAs crossover).
MA have all kind of functions ,you will come back to it every now and then , it gave you the very first impression of chart reading ,even now i didn’t use it anymore ,ill still missing it.
Personally, I like moving averages. I prefer the 200, 50, and 20 ma. It has been one of the most consistent fundamentals tools for me. I like it because it helps me see when to enter the trade. I look at the lower time frames for entry. I am usually in and out of trades fairly quickly. When I see the cross from 20 to 50 and they cross over the 200 I feel somewhat safer entering the trade.
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