Do you mean CTA's? As a CFA and CTA let me set the record straight: CFA - Chartered Financial Analyst. A professional accreditation governed by the Association for Investment Management and Research (AIMR) for security analysts. CTA - Commodity Trading Advisor. A person registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) who gives futures and futures options trading advice or makes trades on behalf of others.
You can make money both in a trend and in a trading range, but with different methods. A trading range is price bouncing up and down between support and resistance, so you need to go long when it bounces on support, and go short when it bounces on resistance. A trend is price breaking through support or resistance, so you need to go long or short only when one of these levels is broken. How can you tell whether we are in a trend or in a trading range? If we are in a trend every day we will make a new high, and low, higher than the previous day (lower for a downtrend). Whereas, in a trading range, we will trade within yesterday's high and low. This is clear in theory, but it's harder to keep it in mind when you are looking at a chart that's continuously evolving before your eyes.
I'll quote nitro like Aaron Schindler did-'' the key'' If you click on a 20 day candle chart much of the DIA,QQQ has been in a sideways trend[choppy or range].Its thanksgiving day. If [chop ] much of the 20 day sideways DIA, QQQ family of stocks into smaller time frames ; some good 3 day swing trades + daytrades. In other words, some of the weekly time frame contains ''higher highs + higher lows-trend'' That's contained within a larger somewhat sideways 20 day trend. ------------------------------ Paul Tudor Jones quote ''Don't overtrade and by the grace of God I was in the right place at the right time.''