What is Moving Averages - Currency Trading Article

By:Martin Chandra

A market that is trending up should have higher peaks and higher valleys. The majority of bars should also have higher highs and higher lows. In a down trend the market should have lower valleys and lower peaks and the majority of bars should have lower lows and lower highs.

When a market is in consolidation (bracketing/flat) the price will generally oscillate in a broad range. Traders who are watching for the breakout will monitor the security for a qualified break. They may place a straddle traded to catch the move regardless of whether it breaks up or down.

There are traders who specialize in trading consolidation. I don't however recommend it to new traders simply because they get whipsawed too much.

The changing prices of a security from tick to tick, day to day or whatever time period you are looking at may seem random, but there are ways to smooth out this randomness. One way trader's look to make sense from this seemingly unpredictable sea is moving averages.

If you are going to trade professionally it is vital that you can identify trading opportunities. To this end the concept of moving averages is a very useful tool to understand.

A moving average (MA) is a way to try and eliminate or minimize the fluctuations of the numerical value of price fluctuations we are observing.

This will help us identify the underlying value. Moving averages are generally calculated using the closing price.

What, in effect, the moving average does, is to eliminate the fluctuation of price in all time periods below the number which is chosen for the average. i.e. a 4-day or 9-week moving average eliminates the presence of price fluctuations for periods up to 4 days or 9 weeks respectively.

A 200-day moving average eliminates the presence of daily price fluctuations for periods below 200 days. This smoothing effect of price change increases as you use longer and longer periods as the average.

There are four commonly used moving averages: simple, smoothed, weighted and exponential.

Simple moving averages give equal weighting to each time period's price.

In an attempt to give more importance to more recent prices, different types of moving averages have been developed. These include smoothed, weighted and exponential moving averages.

I won't go into their complex mathematical derivations of these. Why not? Because detailed retrospective studies of their use has shown that the simple moving average statistically outperforms or equals the use of these newer, biased moving averages.

Digg del.icio.us Blink Stumble Spurl Reddit Netscape Furl

Article keywords: forex, trading, money, exchange, currency, investment, fund, foreign, market, stock, trend, dollar, global

Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Martin Chandra is a full-time investor. He has been researching investment strategies and make his own living. For more information please go to here.

Top Currency Trading Articles
1). How To Spot Forex Fraud By : Willie Reynolds As the popularity of Forex increases so do the number of scam artists attempting to cash in on the Forex gravy train. Since Forex involves trading money internationally, often over the Internet, a whole new breed of scams have come about. Ironically many of these scam artists are finding their marks through newspaper, television or other print media advertisements.
2). Hot Tips for Successful Online Forex Trading - Part 2 By : Jimmy Cox In the first article in this series, I passed on several tips to help you become a successful trader.
3). Trading In Black And White Forex Trading Newsletter – 5/9/06 By : Eddie Yakubovich When is a night that you don’t get into a trade a good trading night? Well the obvious answer is when the market goes against you, but since you did not get to your entry price you did not lose any money.
4). Why Forex is a great trade By : Mark Slattery The Forex market seems to be one of the hottest markets right now. Let’s take a look why It takes small amount of capital to get going and you get leverage with it. This is important because a lot of people entering the market are looking for ways to make money and not just to invest their spare cash. Leverage means that you can use other people’s money to make your investment bigger.
5). Electronic Currency Exchange: Trading Digots for a profitable living By : Armand Mont First of all, if you're just finding out about electronic currency exchange trading, then probably you're still asking "what in the world does this electronic currency business is", and most importantly, "how do I make money from it?" Well, you are reading this at the right time, because electronic currency exchange is a business that is expanding and offering new ways to profit from it.
6). Mechanical Trading systems – Spotting the Ones That Make Money! By : Stephen Todd Mechanical trading systems are, as you would expect, systems that make trading decisions for you. The thought of having mechanical trading systems you can simply use to generate automatic profits, is obviously very attractive to many traders.
7). How Useful Are Charting Indicators? By : Erik Teh Many Forex Traders have computerized charting software to help make trading decisions. There are many excellent indicators that can assist a trader- such as MACD, Relative Strength Index and Moving Average Lines, just to name a few. Using indicators alone can reduce the probability of trading success. Why? Because the Forex market is driven by human emotion and charting software is a computerized program.
8). A Look Back At Forex Trading - 4/18/06 By : Eddie Yakubovich Cable final broke through the super resistance at 1.7600 yesterday. Even though we had a losing trade last night, I have to say I am glad to see that tight range behind us. Maybe now we will see a few prolonged and definable trends.
9). Trading In Black And White Forex Trading Newsletter – 5/17/06 By : Eddie Yakubovich Ok, we admit it, this is even a good trading week for us. A couple of weeks ago, when we made 700 pips we did it in a market that was incredibly volatile. There were 300 pip ranges throughout the week.
10). Understanding What Influences Forex Prices By : Internet Wealth Mentor This article will explain some of the differences between Technical Analysis and Fundamentals and explain a bit about each type of trading. Excerpts are taken from the best-selling book ‘Market Wizards’ where Jack Schwager interviews Ed Seykota and Bruce Kovner. Ed is a trend trader (uses technical analysis) and also relies on hunches from 20 years of experience.

New Currency Trading Articles
1). Why Forex Trading Is So Popular By : Sandra Stammberger The Forex market is often more appealing to people that like to live on the edge. There is more uncertainty by far and the rewards of knowing when to buy and sell can be immense.
2). What Is Forex Or The Forex Market? By : Ali Jamalan The forex market is the largest financial market in the world, trading currencies against each other. This market has the potential for investment and trading for profit having great earning scopes in the trade. Access to this market has become commonplace for any individual who’d want to participate in contrast to the olden days when only large bank buildings could trade in the market.
3). Pick Your Trading System By : Gail Metcalf Many investors keep trying one system after the other until they find something they are comfortable with and that works.
4). Money Management Tips For Trading On The Forex By : David Mclauchlan Money management in the foreign exchange currency market requires educating yourself in a variety of financial areas.
5). Intro to Forex Fundamental Analysis By : Matthew Bass This article looks at the principles of using fundamental analysis skills in Forex trading.
6). Why Should You Trade Forex Market? By : Nofie Iman Simply said, there are no other trading instrument comes even closely to forex market when it comes to liquidity, 24hr market environment and last but not the least, profit potential. Forex (currency) market is the largest (most liquid) financial market in the world, with an average daily volume of more than US$ 1.5 trillion, which is more than all of the global equity markets combined.
7). Understanding Concepts of Online Forex Trading By : Vickie Lovett With a little knowledge and a good forex trading system, you too can profit substantially with minimal risk using online forex trading.
8). Forex Day Trading Versus Position Trading - The Pros and Cons By : Cynthia Macy Trading can be fun and exciting when you daytrade and very boring when you position trade. Our motto: get in, get out and go play!
9). Word Cloud Sites Rock the Web! By : Cynthia Macy If you have a business website that is for trading forex, commodities, stocks or options, etc., then you might be interested in a new advertising method that will send massive new traffic to your business sites and get you tons of valuable one-way back links to improve your page rank, all hands-free!
10). Introduction to the Forex Trading By : Nofie Iman As you might know, the foreign exchange market is the largest financial market in the world. There are over $1.2 trillion changing hands every single day. Compare that to the $25 billion a day trading volume at the New York Stock Exchange. In fact, it is three times larger than all of the US Equity and Treasury markets combined together.