Your advice is simple, yet excellent and really explains WHEN to look at price action and indicators. Price action (some I work with call it, flow) is critical to watch at retracement levels, recent highs/lows, etc., Coordinating these with indicators (I enjoy RSI and volume bars) is certainly an excellent way to trade a wide variety of markets. The Most Interesting Man In the World on using only lagging indicators to trade a market. "No."
MACD is a piece of $hit indicator; I went through thousands about 6 years ago with that one in the spooz, learn Market Profile or go home. When you learn what paper sees and uses- a true auction market process like being in the pit years ago you will make $.
Here you go. 10, 25, and 50 period HMAs and ZLEMAs for comparison. I get the feeling that ZLEMA is supposed to be used in smaller period increments... I'm not sure if you'd ever go higher than 50 or so... the "zero lag" aspect makes it sound like it's meant for short periods, like 3, or 5, or 10. You can see the 10 period ZLEMA follows price pretty closely.
kut2k2 do you have the Jurik MA? Can you post a screenshot of it on the ES? I want to see how it compares to a fast ZLEMA.
5 period HMA vs. 5 period ZLEMA. HMA is slightly faster but overshoots. Then again I've heard it's not necessarily fair to compare x period average of one MA against x period average of another MA. There are some huge differences between some of them. I've heard that HMA only overshoots and doesn't undershoot. Does that sound right? Anyway here's the chart:
Of course it also depends on what you're using your MA for. Slope? Support/Resistance? Profit target? Crossovers?
Ironfist. I have read about moving averages that eliminate lag but when you do so you trade lag for speculation and in my opinion you are no better for it. Indicators like the VPCI (Volume Price Confirmation Indicator) Are a better tool. It is an oscillator and shows when Volume is confirming a price move or not. In a down trend if volume is low or shallow then the indicator will be negative and when the indicator is possitive then volume is confirming the trend. How best to use this indicator? If you have charting software then you can scan a large list of stocks for a negative reading on the VPCI. This will give you charts that the volume is not confirming the current price action. You can then use the next step in reasoning that if price is near a support or resistance level, a Fib level or pivot point that a price reversal is imminent. Here is where you can learn more about this indicator http://www.tradecision.com/support/tasc_tips/VPCI.htm By the way how would anyone know if Swordsman is profitable or not? He sounds like he knows what he is talking about more than most here. MACD is garbage.