Hi Friends
It has been a long time since I actively participated in the forum. The forum does look a lot different now. Tipsters are aplenty and we even have daily horoscopes. Looks like what is lacking is an agony aunt to answer personal problems
I was a little confused on whether there would be any point in continuing this thread. Anyway a little stuff for those who still believes in conventional TA.
Let us keep aside trading systems for a while and look at some indicators. First let me remind you that all my work is aimed towards positional trades and may not be applicable to other types of trades.
The most difficult question for trend followers is whether the stock is trending or ranging. We try to use many indicators like the ADX to judge whether the stock is trending or ranging. Let us try to add one more to our arsenal of Indicators.
We will use a statistical formula commonly known as the z score. The z score indicates how many standard deviation a data is above or below the mean value. In terms of stock prices the z score would indicate how many standard deviation a days price is above or below a the average price. The z score is calculated by dividing the difference between the close and average by the standard deviation of the close itself.
When a stock is trending up the z score is increasing and generally is above one standard deviations from the average. During a downtrend the z score will be below one standard deviations from the average. In a ranging market the z score would be between +1 and 1 standard deviation.
The z score normalizes the prices over a period. We will select three months as the period for normalization.( 60 days assuming 20 trading days per month)
So the z score formula would be C-MA(C,60)/ Stddev(C,60).
Of course, we have to christen this Indicator. I prefer to call it Normalized Price Oscillator or NPO.
We will plot the NPO with lines corresponding 1, 2 and 3 standard deviation. You will notice that during up trends the NPO is generally above the +1 line and in a downtrend the NPO is generally below the 1 line. During a ranging market the NPO wanders between the +1 and 1 line. Strong trends are indicated when the NPO is above or below the two standard deviation lines. I am enclosing a chart of the NPO. More on this later.
warm regards
Karthik