At any given point in time, yes. But not if you took all charts of a limited time range, say a year, and laid them over all other years.
Regarding indicators, I would encourage you to understand what exactly they are measuring and how they do it. Then compare the charts of several of them when applied to the same tradeable. I think you will see they tend to be very similar. I can assure you there is no magic indicator that will lead you to riches. Theycan be useful when used properly. How to tell if you are in a trend or chop? This is the great question. Unfortunately it cannot be answered prospectively. You can say with great assurance "We have been in a trend for x days." No one can say if that trend will continue. The breakout player bets that enough will continue that he can make money. Now it is simple enough to decide whether or not you are currently in a trend. Is price above a trendline? Or is it above a moving average? Or is the ADX above 30 or whatever? One common approach is to determine what the trend is, then use the next smaller timeframe to pick an entry. For example, you decide what the trend is on a 60 minute chart, then take entry signals in that direction from the 5 minute chart. That way you can eliminate one side from consideration, and focus on getting only entries in the direction of the trend from the next higher timeframe. The choice to play breakouts or pullbacks, or to play the trend or countertrend is largely a matter of the market environment and your personality. Understand the typical outcomes of trading each style and make sure you are comfortable with them. For example, breakout traders will generally have a win/loss percentage of only 30-35%, but make their money by catching a few big moves and hanging on to them. Scalpers might have 90% wins but lose big on their few losers and make small profits on their winners.
AAA (DC right?), You've done me a great favor by both confirming what I feel I've been heading towards and showing yet more aspects that I had missed thus far. While I've got you in the grips of discussion, may I ask where you stand on these matters? To think of it you've probably already posted along these lines, so might you provide some of what you have not yet posted while I search the archives? Having moved past the first phase of experimentation and "mass learning" (my phrase for one's initiation to a new field of study) I wonder where I'll be after my second year of market study. I see highly technical threads like "The Stochastic Indicator" and feel somewhat intimidated - should I? Alright, enough questions for now.
I don't want to offend anyone Ihaven'talready, but the simple fact is that about half of what you read here is nonsense, and a good bit of the rest wouldn't stand up to rigorous testing. Many of us have stated that we have trouble following jack hersey's ideas, whether because of the lingo or what. I wouldn't let it bother you. You will seldom be successful trying to follow someone else. You might as well just hand the money over to someone else to trade. What I do and how successful I am varies a great deal from year to year. Now I am doing most of my trading intraday on the ES, using a form of the method I outlined in my previous post. For this type of trading, it is important to understand how the market reacts to opening gaps and to support and resistance. The pivot point concept is also useful. It is also crucial to understand risk management. You simply must protect yourself from large losses. Not only will they eat up your capital, but they also will damage you psychologically and make it difficult totrade. However, don't make the mistake of thinking a tiny stop loss protects you. It may protect you on one trade, but a long series of losses will do just as much damage as one large one. You might want to dig Seanote's threads out of the archives and put up the actual charts of his trades and see if you can figure out what he was doing. He was an extraordinary trader, a great guy and we miss him.
determining trend is pretty easy. it's just that it took me a long time to figure out how it's done. AAA mentioned good ways but I think he forgot to mention the HigherHighs/HigherLows method.