What does the audience use and why? On Balance Volume (or) Chaikin Money Flow In Murphy's TA books, he only mentions OBV, no mention of CMF. In Pring's book, CMF is lightly touched on. In my own testing, CMF appears to be a potentially powerful secondary tool to help confirm trend comments?
I prefer to use OBV. You can see how I use it on eSignal. The article I wrote about OBV can be found at eSignal Central http://www.esignalcentral.com/learning/likepro/archive/nov03/110603.asp
In theory OBV is a very crude method of showing volume moving into and out of a stock and CMF, MFI, Acc/Dist (to name just a few) are supposed to be refinements (improvements) to the original concept. However in all honesty OBV in all its simplicity still works best for me and is what gives me the best results. Don't know why but I always say if something works well for you then use it without too much analysing. Denis.
If you use CMF, look for divergences with price, and use trendline breaks to determine reversal points. Also, it will mimick the Chande Momentum Oscillator closely.
After reading another thread regarding Volume Indicators I have started using Klinger's Volume Oscillator. Seems to be very responsive in short term, perhaps better than OBV which is a better swing trader vs day trader tool. Quickly, the Klinger Oscillator has 2 lines which cross each other showing the direction that prices will take which typically is related to the changes in Volume from bar to bar. Klinger uses a fast and a slow average to smooth the volume changes and a "trigger value" which smoothes the versus the second. Anyone else have any experience with Klinger?
Others have told me the same, it appears to be an error. You may the eSignal Central article here too: http://www.tradingscience.com/articlesonesignalcentral.html Sorry for the inconvenience, I'm sure the issue will be resolved shortly.
Attached is a good example of a CMF trendline break, which is an alert to a change in market direction. The CMF is shown at the top of the graphic in "green". Note the trendline break in the CMF while the trendline in the QQQ has not yet made a noticeable break. This initial break in the CMF is often followed by a reversal in direction, crossing its zero line and then breaking down thru the zero line once again...this is the "sell signal". Price will rebound also during this CMF bounce but must not go to a new high. Notice the CMF triangle at the conclusion of the price trend. CMF failing to make new highs with price. What does this say for the Q's? We are likely getting close to a reversal point in this intermediate term direction...from up to down. The CMF is telling us more price action with closes nearer the lows than highs is occurring....distribution. This type of analysis works in any market and time frame. I have found a 10 period CMF works best. Bob