Correct, I don't use and not forced. Mmmmmm, what's so complicated about a lagging average indicator that one could not understand? Oh, you use it with MACD. Now that's called digging a hole, two bad indicators doesn't equal one good one. No one is forcing you to not use moving averages and no one is forcing you not to be sheep, please carry on.
For your ema, try this formula, and play around with values for alpha and gain, typical values might be alpha = 0.2 and gain = 0.5: y[0] = alpha*(x[0]+gain*(x[0]-y[1]))+(1-alpha)*y[1] Also, read the article by John Ehlers and Ric Way, "Zero Lag" to find an algorithm to optimize gain.
I personally don't use any indicators for my discretionary trading, but I've dicked around with a few when testing my algos. In the process, I've realized that there's really no right way or the wrong way to use an indicator. For instance, more than half of the time, I tweaked the formula of the indicator to see if I could "overclock" it. You end up with something totally different from what you originally started with, but heck it's still an indicator.
Love how this became political Must add, I played s/r by stomach and I suck at uptrend plays, EMAs might change that
EMA's won't change anything, it's grasping at straws, the wrong approach is the wrong approach no matter how much lipstick you paint on the pig. Think about it!!! What does averaging a price do? Nothing! If your foundation for TA is weak / baseless, then the house can't function. Most of the problem lays in accepting certain TA doctrine and not questioning it.
A better way is to spend some hours, maybe days or even weeks to come up with something via thinking for yourself which is not a lagging moving averages. For me to hand over something is too easy. But what if I said "is a 1MA a lagging MA?". Then you'll laugh at me and say "You're clueless, how the hell can you use a 1MA?" And my reply will be, "You still don't get, think harder".
Just one question. Do you mean the "the new bullish candle closes above the last candles opening thing" as "analyse PA on a candle by candle basis" or do you look at the trend (higher low, higher high)? Were you the guy who goes candle by candle or was it someone else?
I don't bother with candle analysis, or bar by bar analysis. I don't bother with indicators of any sort, especially moving averages which are dead useless. Support and resistance levels I do, but not trend lines much, ie sloping. My main core is sentiment which is calculated.