basic concept i'm having a little trouble grasping. i read that most of the time the market is non-trending, yet on a daily basis i see trends. be it some are shorter than others, reverse more and some have period of chop but just about everyday i see some period in which the indices are trending. could someone please define the differences between the two and how most days the indices are non-trending? charts would be great
Reality is just the opposite. Intraday trends are largely superficial while trends on a 6months charts are real and more decisive.
Intraday trends and reversals are the bread and butter of daytraders. Long term trends (weeks and months) are for swing and trend following methods.
You are focusing on an often overlooked critical aspect of trading. Being able to determine for yourself whether the market is trending/directional or chop/side ways. A method that works in one won't work in the other environment. It takes thousands of hours of screen time to be able to determine this. Let me give you a suggestion. If you enter off of a 1-5 minute chart then use a 10-15 minute chart to determine trend or not. Is the market making higher highs higher lows etc. and vice versa or not? Additionally, its important to look at daily charts, etc. For example, most would agree that the stock market is either in a downtrend or sideways from a daily perspective. Therefore, it more likely IMO, to short on a 3 minute when the 15 minute says short since the daily is downtrend, make sense? There is a good video on helping to determine trend or chop from Dan Gramza on CME website and its free. Find this title and watch it several times it should help Trading CME® FX Products with Trend Analysis. Here is the link http://www.cme.com/edu/events/od/fx.html. I know I didn't answer the question the exact way you asked, but I am confident my answer should help you.
i appreciate the response although that link is broken any other information on this would be greatly appreciated
Your observations are (for practical purposes) collating multiple definitions of "trend". Make your definition more specific, and you'll notice the frequency of observation decline significantly.