Hello,
I am wondering what moving averages would be appropriate for the different time frames? With what period length? And Simple or Exponential?
What moving averages do you use on Daily, H4 or H1 Time frames for support/resistance? Or for crossover signals?
I know that the question does not have a definite answer, but I am searching at least for some guidelines how to choose the appropriate number of periods and type of the moving average to place on a given time frame.
It really comes down to your trading style. On daily as well as H4 and H1 the 50DMA and 200DMA are very solid signals. I don’t put too much weight on them. On the H1 you can also take a look at the 20DMA and 50DMA for crossovers. As I said, it all comes down to your trading style and I would not recommend a strategy based solely on moving averages as they are lagging indicators. They are a nice addition to an overall analysis, but then again you may like a strategy based only on them and be successful.
EMA / SMA are not HUGELY different if the markets aren’t having a tantrum. and if they ARE having a tantrum, a MA of any kind is going to be far too laggy to be useful.
as to 20, 50, 40000000, pick what you’re comfy with. i tend to stick to multipliers of 4 and 5 (so i may have a chart with raw price, 5EMA, 25EMA, 125EMA, …), others might go in jumps of 10 (raw price, 10EMA, 100EMA, 1000EMA, …)
some folks like to have the _MA count equal a certain fixed time span, so for example on a 4H chart they may have a 6EMA (cuz 6x4H=24hrs, which is one day). if you have a 5min chart, you might use a 12EMA (12x5min=60min=1hr), and so on.
some people like to get tricky and say “well, if you’re all looking at a 50EMA, i’m gonna use a 45EMA to get my signals before you! HA!”
I have a 20ema and a 50ema on my chart for intraday trading. For higher timeframes I have a 100ema and a 200ema on there - I find that they work well as S&R, they can work as a more accurate trendline in the right market… but as an earlier poster said, this really just comes down to your individual style. Personally, I don’t find MA cross strategies accurate enough, so am really just using the ema’s for extra confluence - I don’t trade because of them, and would happily trade without them.
While moving averages can be use as dynamic S/R, they are better used as a bias indicator. The most important MA are the 100 and 200 daily simple MA. Of course depending on your strategy you can use any MA.
Other important MA are 5, 10, 21, 50 daily simple moving average… and one good EMA use by a lot of traders is the 55.
Notice that the 5, 10 and 21 daily simple MA, translates in the 1 week, 2 week and 1 month of trading MA.
Croosover can only signal that a bias [B]“MIGHT BE”[/B] changing
Use them ALL! :5: Search for a “rainbow” template online, there are several versions of the same thing - in short it’s an MT4 template with MANY MA’s from 2 to 200 on a single chart, colored differently. You won’t be able to use crossovers directly, but they are FANTASTIC for identifying breakouts or areas of support/res. levels while keeping you ALWAYS on the trend. :54: Disadvantage: as the MA’s are lagging so is the Rainbow, and you may find perfect signals right at the end of a move. But in general I think it’s better to be late but ON the trend than being early & against it… Just my 2 cents - good luck! :41:
How do you put daily moving averages on MT4? Do you just choose the Daily timeframe and put the MA on it and make it invisible on the other timeframes? Is there a way to see a Daily MA on a smaller timeframe? Or if you want to see the 50DMA on H4 you just create 300 MA on it?
Moving average is a lagging indicator that’s why it’s not helpful for you to catch the trend earlier.I prefer double exponential moving average over the simple and exponential one.