Trend following & Tech. Table reading..

There are various time cycles operating in the market all the time like monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, 5-minute, etc and each has their own trend.
For eg.We have presently the weekly trend down, daily attempting & nearly achieving a reversal, hourly turning up on Thursday and so on.

To confirm a trend, market need to close above or below 5 ema. Why ema? Because they give more weightage to the recent price action unlike the simple moving average which gives equal weightage to the last 5 days closes. And also the slow macd (Difference between 12 & 26 ema) should be up and above its trigger (9 sma of macd).Why 5 ? 5 trading days a week..Besides, I have found it to be stable , though some use 3, 4 etc.

If I wait for a daily buy signal, I miss 200 points from the bottom before the trend turns up. And after the trend turns up , market pulls back as a correction before rallying further and you may end up holding at higher levels for a brief period of time. So we look for the hourly trend to take position but this should be done only when the daily is in oversold status.

Similarly when the hourly is in oversold status, look at 5 minute to give you a buy signal for a possible reversal in hourly.On the fateful 27th Oct, Nifty's low of 2253 was accompanied by an excellent +ve divergence which helped to take a buy call even before the hourly buy signal.

If you see the Tech table in which Market is shown to be down in weekly (always closing below 5 ema) and in daily (Closed above 5 ema but macd is yet to move above the trigger and still closed below the 5 high ema).

5 High ema tells you the upward momentum in Nifty. As long as it closes below it, it is sell on rises.(So for Monday, Nifty needs to close above 2750 (high ema) to sustain the Friday's momentum..Just intra rally above 2750 is not enough). If it closes above it, then buy on dips & hold longs.Use it in conunction with weekly, daily, hourly.

5 Low ema tells you the downward momentum in Nifty. As long as it closes below it, it is hold shorts.If it closes above it, it is buy on dips & sell on rises till it closes above 5 high ema.

In simple terms
....Up & buy on dips above 5 high ema
....dn & sell on rises below 5 low ema
....sideways & trade supports & resistances as long as it closes
inbetween 5 high ema & 5 low ema.

These are certain indicative tools and not an absolute one for trading.

Use always channels for your trading along with other supportive indicators. the primary guide should be prices and that travels within channels most of the time. Channels most often break during a 4th wave. So keep that in mind. (Eg. Say a downtrend develops in to a 5 sub waves. After 1 dn, then 2nd up, then a 3rd dn and now on its 4th up. Draw a line connecting 1st bottom and the 3rd bottom. Bring a parallel line touching the 2nd top and you will find the 4th wave breaking this top trend line briefly and move back into the channel and make a low and then rise breaking this channel decisively. Barring these, Channels offer excellent trading guides.
Observe in all the "SAR" charts posted here, how these channels have helped in intra days and even helped in avoiding whipsaws.

Finally, an interesting article about the recent financial meltdown...you may have read the first few paragraphs already elsewhere but the last few paragraphs are the surprising ones. don't miss them.