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What Does Lagging Indicator Mean?
1. A measurable economic factor that changes after the economy has already begun to follow a particular pattern or trend.
2. A technical indicator that trails the price action of an underlying asset and is used by traders to generate transaction signals or to confirm the strength of a given trend. Since these indicators lag the price of the asset, a significant move will generally occur before the indicator is able to provide a signal.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
2. A technical indicator that trails the price action of an underlying asset and is used by traders to generate transaction signals or to confirm the strength of a given trend. Since these indicators lag the price of the asset, a significant move will generally occur before the indicator is able to provide a signal.
Remember that price is an INPUT to most indicators.
"a significant move will generally occur before the indicator is able to provide a signal."
I can vouch for this, many times using an indicator I'm in late and I exit late. And despite what looks like a great signal from the indicator, if you look closely the exit is often below the entry meaning even though price made a nice cycle from low to high you can loose money!
It goes back to what you said Jeff, that LBR said you can't wait for the indicator you have to anticipate it. I have found that to be the case many times. And if I'm entering before the indicator gives a signal then why do I need the indicator?
There is a guy Eric who started a thread in Trader's Hideout about trading without indicators. He describes two setups and they're setups I use, one with sine wave and one that I've been doing naked. He's showed me that I don't need the sinewave for the first one.
TRO - I agree that they're not all equal. I think better volume is a good example. It doesn't lag, it tells you what happened now on the current bar.
Quote -
Now, 2 patterns of market behaviour happen on a regular basis:
1) the price breaks to new high's (or low's)
2) the price reverses from new high's (or low's)
If price is NOT making a new low then it must be reversing from the low.
If price is NOT making a new high then it must be reversing from the high.
This is simple. Too simple for most traders. Instead of trusting what their eyes SEE, then want indicators to tell them what price is doing. That morphs into indicators that tell them what price IS GOING TO DO and that is their downfall. The rat beats them.
I'm getting to think that it doesn't really matter what you look at when you trade as long as it makes sense to you and you look at the same thing all the time.
In some respects it pays to know what everyone else is looking at.( Self fullfilling prophecies come true)
Here are some standard moving averages.... I could trade off this chart as well as any other....... and the rat won't beat me.
Moving Averages provide structure..... if you don't need 'em don't use 'em.
I think you are right. Try not to predict price...just react to price. The danger is when you say the blue moving average is pointing down so price is going down. Price is going wherever it wants to... The blue average is just a lagging indicator of where price has been. The only thing you can control is your loss. One thing that has really resonated from this conversation is the concept of being only a one side player. Net Long, etc. While waiting for the big one. We all do it in a certain sense by looking at a long term moving average then trading the moves in that direction off of a smaller term avg. I just had not considered this as a permanent concept. I was so excited to come to (in my case currencies) a market where you could go long or short with ease. I thought that was finally freedom....
If you have a preconception but it changes due to indicators or some personal bias I think you will always lag the market in your mind. ex. You "feel" the market is going down. Well how long after the price is moving up is it before you "feel" the market is going up.
Since you can not predict the future and the big moves do happen -in both directions - if you play both sides what are the odds you will be on the right side when the big one hits...It really does take some/maybe all of the anxiety out of it for me. I will be net long for awhile and see what happens... Green Rat
