Hi, I was wondering; is the point where Heiken Ashi turns from long to short the same point as a MACD crossover? Possibly an exponential MA? Or are they different intrinsically?
mfurlend,
Heiken Ashi candles are calculated very differently than the MACD.
But…you might find the Heiken Ashi candle-color-changes do in fact correspond with MACD signals.
Here’s a link that will give you some more info on the Heiken Ashi candles.
Heikin-Ashi: A Better Candlestick
Good luck
Don
I already read that link :p. I am talking specifically about the color changes. Is the correspondence between a MACD Crossover and the Heiken Ashi color change a coincidence, or is the color change in fact MACD when it comes down to it?
Oh… I’m pretty sure it’s a coincidence, or maybe better to say a [B]correlation[/B]. Think about how & why indicators are designed. MACD & Heiken Ashi are both designed to show and represent the trend of the price action, and give signals when the trend is changing. Lots of times indicators designed to signal overbought & oversold i.e.: Stoch, CCI or bollinger bands will also give a OB or OS signal at roughly the same time.
Sometime I’ll run two charts side by side, one with Heiken Ashi candles and the second with regular candles, using the best of both. 
Thanks for the quick reply - I was hoping that was the case. I am trying to make the most out of Heiken Ashi - What do you think about this strategy: If a color change occurs in Heiken Ashi, look for a reversal candlestick pattern (hammer, engulfment , etc). If that is present as well then do the trade. Its really simple, but it might be effective.
the thing is, both HA and MACD are lagging indicators. Sometimes one precedes the other, but unless you use MACD for divergence, I don’t think there’s too much point having it on if u already use HA.
Otherwise, how many more lagging indicators u gonna add?
Indicators are just a quick summary of what’s going on, they won’t tell you any more than you will find out by simply looking at the chart, a great example to see this is stochastic, look at your chart and in a few seconds you can see how your stochastic will look like.
I would suggest you try flipping your strategy, first with regular candles look for your reversal patterns.
Then look to your heiken ashi candles as confirmation of a trend change.
The heiken ashi color-change lag the price action and might be best used as confirmation of a trend, not as a quick reversal signal of a trend change.