by Rick Wright 

Hello traders! In this week's Lessons from the Pros Newsletter I'd like to go into a brief explanation of trading with the trend, and a common pattern to help you trade against the trend.

First of all, by now you have all heard the phrase (or one like it) that “the trend is your friend.” This essentially means that you should be trading in the direction of the primary trend based on your trading style. By trading style I mean day trader, swing trader, long term trader, etc. Each trading style will have a suggested set of time frames for you to watch; the largest is to help you identify the trend, the intermediate is for you to identify supply and demand zones to join the trend; and the smallest time frame is for you to time your entry in the specific zone. So, looking at your longest time frame, how do you define the dominant trend?

The common definitions of uptrends and downtrends are as follows: an uptrend is a series of higher lows and higher highs, while a downtrend is a series of lower highs and lower lows. Simple enough, right? Very often a trader will use a moving average or two, or even a trendline to help them to determine their trend. When used properly, these tools can be extremely helpful.

In this EURUSD 60 minute chart, the blue arrows mark the lower highs and lower lows of a downtrend, while the pink arrows mark the higher lows and higher highs of an uptrend. The point marked “1” shows where an aggressive trader might have noticed a break of previous highs, indicating a potential uptrend. The point marked “2” is where a more conservative trader should have noticed the uptrend beginning, with both a higher low and a higher high having been formed. This technique has been covered in several of our newsletters before; the next portion of this newsletter will help you determine when a trend may be ready to reverse, and perhaps get you in very early at the start of a new trend!