Moving Average Crossover Secrets That You Need To Know

by Ahmad Hassam on Thursday, March 25th, 2010 | No Comments

Moving averages are one of the simplest and the most popular technical indicators that can be used in any market. While using averages, the length of time used to calculate them is very important. Moving averages with shorter time periods fluctuate more activley and tend to give more trading signals. Shorter time period moving averages tend to whipsaw a lot that can cause losses.

There are three types of moving averages. In case of weighted and exponential moving averages, more weight is given to the recent prices as compared to the old ones making them more responsive to recent price action as compared to the simple moving averages. Simple averages are calculated by dividing all the prices with the number of time periods used to calculate the average.

On the other hand, longer time period averages move slowly with a smoother curve that can be slow in giving trading signals for entering into a long or short position. Now many traders use a combination of slow and fast moving averages in generating trading signals.

Most traders use the combination of three averages. When the short period average crosses the medium one, this gives a trading signal but this need to be confirmed. Confirmation is obtained when the short and the medium move above the longer period average. Futures traders use the combination like 4,9 and 18 period averages. Stock traders use longer periods like the 40 day, 100 day and 200 day to generate trading signals.

Now next to trendlines, moving averages are the most widely used technical indicators. So when using moving average crossovers, when the short period average is above the long period average, you should be long. Similarly when the short period average is below the long period average, you should be short.

The crossovers of these short and longer averages provide the trading signal to act as they indicate that the momentum is shifting from one direction to another. Moving average crossovers are an important tool in the arsenal of any trader. Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) one of the most popular indicator depends on them.

However, when trading with these crossovers, you should know this that these averages are lagging indicators. What this means is that they are giving a signal about the past price action something that has already taken place. These averages work very well in a trending market but do not work well in non trending or choppy markets.

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