80% of the time

It has limited meaning without references to time-frames.

However you define "trending" (and there are many different working definitions, of course), it's normal for financial instruments to be trending in one direction when viewed within a specific time-frame, while ranging or even sometimes trending in the opposite direction within others.

If you're thinking of a specific type of instrument, as viewed within a specific time-frame, what you say may well be perfectly true, of course.

But there's also a "bigger picture": context is everything.

 

I'd say that if you want to scan all 'timeframes' markets are almost always trending.

 

I don't think that's much of a description of "trending", let alone a definition?

"Price changing predominantly in the same overall direction" would surely be a little more descriptive?

 

Test for stationarity, you noobs.

 

Pick any point in the past. 5 min ago, 5 years ago etc. and the most recent price. If the recent price is higher it could be in an uptrend? 3 months ago it was 10, now it's 20, so bonafide uptrend? Except last month it was 50. But still compared to 3 months ago it is trending up?

 

? What does this even mean?

 

How random does the Nasdaq chart look to you?

 

(I know you weren't asking me but) obviously not very random at all.

It's kind of "questionable" - not to put too fine a point on it - whether it's really worth responding to people in trading forums who state that markets are random.

I'm "just saying": it's the classic illustration of how anything can be alleged in the absence of a definition of its terms.

"Random" is one of those words like "predictable", when applied to trading: they're both terms whose absence of definition just leads to everyone talking at cross purposes, really.

 

Anyone who thinks every day is random and completely ignores any of the collective behavior of buyers and sellers in a given area just plain doesn't understand markets.

At an underlying level it's all driven by trends of some sort. At the infinitely large time frame is it a giant range? Probably not. The output of the sun over it's entire lifetime isn't a range is it?

 

For a market that isn't random, people sure do have a hard time predicting whether even tomorrow will be an up day or a down day.