Agreed. I use indicators to trade, but I place no emphasis on the middle line. It's absolutely useless. Prices are trending well before that.
Wow that is actually great and I think works better than 10>5>1. I was going to calculate the rate of change between then 10 5 1 SMA and add it. If the rate is -1 to 1 then we are sideways. But if 21 MA > 7 MA by at least x% we are in down, else up, else sideways.
The only useful thing about middle line is of it showing price is in chop by hugging both sides of middle line.
The Dow Theory definition of Trend is yet another mechanism (basically higher highs & higher lows for an up-trend, etc). I coded this in ThinkScript, which seems to work fine, but alone, is of marginal value (as are the other detectors). -- You may wish to use more than one mechanism for more than one time frame (the time frame of interest, and one or more longer time frames). My current interest is not in directional trading, so fade my comments accordingly.
B1S2...is there any element to your trading that takes a intuitive mindset, where maybe your TRAINED EYE must make a decision because this decision isn't necessarily documented? I've been finding out that good traders have at least a small% of art to their trading and without it...drawdown probability can rise significantly! My interpretation of market volatility (however slight) is essential to making a living...yes...the setups are easy, now that they've already been created...execution is easy, because of experience. If you do in fact have any element of "art form" to your methodology....wouldn't that be a case for your trading not being so simple/easy? Very curious! Thanks.