Does indicators work in the market?

I don’t know the indicators you are talking about. A professional forex trader said indicators like moving average , Bollinger band, etc doesn’t work, so i think I have to stop learning about indicators and focus on price action but Will that be better? To use price action and indicators which one is the best?

Oh okay!

I find it more and more difficult to develop my own trading style. A person like NNFX says that indicators are the best and all you need. Others say that indicators do not work and are $hit and that it is impossible to be profitable because it is WAY to easy with indicators.

I don’t talk about any specific indicator. I’m just asking what is Price Action for that professional trader. And based on your definition of Price Action, indicators are the same tool.

I have the same question as you! I really don’t know. I’m relatively new to FX trading and I’m still developing my own strategy. Discussions like this confuse my thought process.

You can search on YouTube for NoNonseForex. He is a pro trader. He even trades for a campany, although thats what he claims…

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Ok thank you I really appreciate your reply.

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One video you DEFINITELY need to watch from him: Big Banks. You will understand SO much more about FX trading if you watch that video! He explains why price moves etc.

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“there is truth at both ends but never in the middle”!

for sure, there are very many career-successful traders on trading-floors (mostly “virtual trading-floors”, these days, i suppose) using indicators - no question about that

but there are very, very few home-based amateurs who are ever going to achieve steady success that way, especially if they imagine that using some combination of indicators to time trade entries is going to be viable for them, and those are for the most part the people watching NNFX’s videos on Youtube

i’d agree, however, that there are clearly many far worse people than NNFX submitting videos there, and that as these things go, he’s one of the better ones. i just think the advice he’s giving is mostly really bad advice for the people he’s giving it to (who are mostly not you and me and tommor, you know?).

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The important point to remember about indicators is that they are based on mathematical formulas. Therefore, what works in a certain type of price development will probably only work in similar price moves. That is why you can adjust most indicator parameters.

Finding the set of parameters that seem to fit the recent price movements is commonly called “curve fitting” and in no way guarantees that the indicator will continue to fit future price movements. Price moves do not follow the same patterns all the time. Sometimes they are in slow trends for a long time, sometimes very fast and short duration, sometimes ranging, sometimes just jumping around or spiking. No mathematically-based indicator is going to work in all such scenarios.

Perhaps the only such indicator that is reliable in most conditions are moving averages when they are used to compare the general direction of recent prices relative to previous prices, i.e. a change in trend direction. They work because they actually benefit from lagging and adapt to the price movement as it is happening.

However, strategies based on MA crossovers are not reliable and rarely produce consistent profits over time because trends tend to develop much slower than how they usually end. But as a measure of trend direction and continuation MAs can be very useful.

So my recommendation is to concentrate on price action techniques and only use the more traditional indicators such as MA’s RSI MACD etc for additional confirmation.

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Use “Volatility Watcher” and/or “OBOS Watcher” from mql5 site. Combine it with your favorite indicators and trading style. It may reduce the wrong trades.

If it’s been working since the 50’s, why would it be tossed to the side?

The answer to this question is…

It’s better to use an indicator … that aligns with your style of trading … for the FX market.

It takes time and money to figure out your natural way of trading. If something works for you (e.g. gives you a mathematical edge) who cares what anyone else says.

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It was a lot of good information. I used many indicators but did not get current results.
I tried to enter the trade by analyzing with a momentum indicator of such a trend but the signal of that indicator caused me to lose because the signal of the indicator ends where the trading strategy based on the indicator has been created.

indeed, and it’s partly the validity of that comment that attracts all the beginners to indicators

what it doesn’t take into account, unfortunately, is that most of the people trying to use them can’t tell with a high degree of confidence whether it does give them a true edge, so they trade on hope and guesswork

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Isn’t that exactly how the whole journey/experience to becoming a profitable trader can be summarized in a single sentence?

This is my point. Everyone looks for the printing press IF THEN statement.

MINE IS:

IF YOU CAN STAY IN THE GAME LONG ENOUGH, THEN YOU’LL REALIZE THAT 1+1 DOESN’T ALWAYS = 2 FROM A TRADING PERSPECTIVE. IT’S AN ART, THAT IS HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE, AND IS NOT SCIENTIFIC AT ALL

Only one indicator works in ANY markets,and that is CANDLESTICK.Yes ,maybe you didnt knew but candlesticks are indicators,so,thats the only one that works. All other indicators doesnt work,not in the past,not now,not in near future. I believe all those who trade based only on indicators are doomed to loss,always.

Because they were made for trading stocks and mainly reversals (overbought/oversold). But think about this: when is a currencypair overbought or oversold? Stocks can be overbought or oversold but a currencypair? - Nah. You litteraly can’t say that a currencypair is overbought or oversold… So that’s why you shouldn’t use them in my opinion.

I would agree that a pair cannot really be o/b or o/s in terms of value, but I think the general idea in forex terms is a measure of momentum. I.e. the speed and distance that price is moving. O/b or o/s in these terms is more like when activity is overheated and likely to run out of steam or burn out and either retrace or even reverse.

But even that is a very vague and intangible concept and explains why a move can continue in forex in an o/b or o/s state for a quite some time. A very inexact science!

Just my thoughts.

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This is too narrow a view of o/b and o/s. Its incorrect to argue that because we are not buying and selling tangible assets that therefore the price cannot be o/b or o/s. These expressions reflect the recent movements in price up or down, they’re not relatable to value.

Though obviously I agree you should never take an o/b or o/s signal as an entry signal, its an indication of a market mood or set-up.

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If you want to go far in this forex business forget about what they thought you in the stock, I mean don’t try to introduce stock terms here because if you try it you will definitely make a lot of mistakes. Forget about the ob/os because we are not buying any tangible thing here. Hope you understand.

Oh I see! Thank you for your advice. I do understand what you are explaining. Thank you for your help.

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But this is, again, just incorrect. O/b and o/s do not refer to over-priced or under-priced compared to value, they do not mean expensive or cheap, they refer to where price is compared to where it was not long ago and how quickly it got here.

The underlying asset, or the value of the same, or the volume of these assets traded, has no relation to o/b or o/s. The underlying value can be literally zero, this will not mean that price cannot be o/b or o/s.