I got caught on ES and took a LOSS, but the pain was significantly reduced by E6...will re enter ES +1225.. Incredible timing for this thread... NiN
After years of trying to find low risk trades to enter for long term trading into an established trend was futile for me, I decided to go the other way. Then years of working, I found certain patterns occur at ends of trends to be much more reliable for me than getting into established trend. And the same applies for me in day trading. To me it had nothing to do with getting in at extremes, it had to do with finding statistically backtested methods that proved to me it would be profitable. Do I have losses, hell yes, and so do trend traders. But I don't have to risk much and when it does become profitable, I get more. The longer I trade, the less I see trend, prices goes up/down, it is your ability to educate yourself to price pattern of how to manage the trade.
Defining a trend is easy. The difficulty is fairly increased when you realized there is no such thing as "a trend" but trends within trends within trends. Isolating them is key and for that you got simple techniques that will assist.
a trend is at least two successive tick price changes in same direction..higher or lower. the price must increase or decrease TWICE from initial price to qualify as a trend.
If you can define it, you can trade it. To make you life easier . . . Using ticks to define a trend will be noisy beyond belief. 3 points (oscillation tops or bottoms) can easily define direction. 2 points (oscillation tops or bottoms) can easily define consolidation.