The biggest money is made having a strong bias and it being the correct one. That will enable you to hold swings that a weaker bias would get shaken out off. I’ve seen newbies buy on strong blind bias and be correct. Guess what they’ve made a shiitload of money. The problem is that you could be wrong.
You can know switch from bull to bear if you know true sentiment and intentions of large funds but these are not easy to filter from noise and no one big enough will tell you when they plan to get out because they would be crazy doing so. Having said that indicators may provide near-switch evidence but the problem are false signals you have to manage. If you get many false signals your benefit from correct switch evaporates. The effort is then to find indicators that limit false signals. I hope this helps.
Wrong. Traders need to know the direction of the market in higher level time frames. Trend filters in multiple time frames improve your success rate, especially if you are a swing trader or position trader.
Nothing goes up in a straight line so falling price does not automatically negate a bull market. That said, there is too much emphasis on what the media and commentators are saying about whether the market is a bull or a bear or its in a crash or a correction. If you're a trader, you have a strategy that works under all conditions (or at least keeps you in cash when necessary) and you just trade the price action: if you're an investor, what do you care anyway, unless you can use the price action as a time to buy some more dividend income shares.
Actualy nobody knows whether it's bull or bear. You need to read signals carefully and form your own opinion. I never take advice about these topics.
My current reading of the market, but it is just my reading. The market is bottomed short term. If it would make as big a same directional move in another 5-10 trading days, it is a bear market, the questions is, would you dare to swing trade short (holding overnight positions). The more likely scenario is that it will slowly climb backup, and hit the 68-76% retracement level, that is the moment to try a high probability short. Then it should bounce between another lower level retracement, until it breaks to either side. As a trader, I refrain from taking positions in between these levels with high committement, and try to take positions at those levels, where risk/reward ratio is more optimal.