Williams %R – Williams Percent Range

The Williams’ Percent Range is similar to the Stochastic Oscillator. Known also as the William’s %R, this technical tool allows traders to gauge raw momentum in the market.

Stochastic Oscillator

The Stochastic Oscillator is a technical indicator which shows relative highs and lows based on high-low calculations from previous periods. Stochastic indicators place less emphasis on price, instead focusing on speed and momentum of price movements to determine highs and lows.

Standard Deviation Indicator

Standard deviation is a fundamental concept in modern statistics, but it plays a role in technical analysis too. The standard deviation indicator available in forex trading platforms provides a way to complement other technical indicators for a broad market analysis.

Relative Vigor Index

Breathe a big sigh of relief. There is simply no indicator that is as simple to understand as the Relative Vigor Index. The RVI as it appears in your platform is constructed of two lines. The fast line represents the vigor of recent movements. The slow line represents a longer-term view of momentum created by major market participants.

Percentage Price Oscillator

The Percentage Price Oscillator is built around the same foundation as the Moving Average Convergence Divergence, which is also an oscillator for technical analysis.

The Percentage Price Oscillator is even used with the same default settings. If you were to use the PPO as it were intended, you’d use 12, 26, and 9-period settings.

Parabolic SAR

The Parabolic SAR indicator is a technical indicator created by none other than Welles Wilder, the man who created other top-notch indicators like the Relative Strength Index. Known by its full name as the Parabolic Time/Price System, the shorter name, Parabolic SAR, stands for Parabolic “Stop and Reversal” indicator.

Moving Average of Oscillator

Metatrader 4 lists this indicator as the Moving Average of Oscillator in their list of technical indicators. In forex trading circles, the Moving Average of Oscillator is also referred to as the OsMa, the initials of the longer form, Oscillator of Moving Average.

Market Facilitation Index

All technical indicators have an inventor. One of technical analysis’ biggest contributors was Bill Williams, who invented the Market Facilitation Index, among other indicators like the RSI.

Gator Oscillator

The Gator Oscillator is a technical indicator based on the Alligator Indicator. The Gator Oscillator allows traders to quickly reference the spread between the Alligator Indicator’s charted lines.

Gann Fan

W.D. Gann, an early trader and market enthusiast created several technical indicators. Among the most popular was the Gann Fan, a market indicator which created support and resistance lines based on the slope market movements.

Force Index

We say repeatedly on this site that the foreign exchange market trends 70% of the time. But when the market isn’t trending, it moves with force. Luckily, the Force Index exists to tell us how weak or strong the force is with each trend.

Fractals in Forex

Fractals are a mathematical vocabulary term, but they’ve been turned into technical trading tools, as well. In forex, trading platforms like Metatrader 4 and TradeStation keep traders from having to explore fully the mathematics of the indicator. Rather, traders simply need to know how fractals work, and how they can be used in profitable forex strategies.

Alligator Indicator

The Alligator Indicator is an excellent technical indicator for forex traders, even if it is one of the most basic. In fact, the popular Alligator Indicator is nothing more than three smoothed moving averages, but the Alligator’s ability to find winning trades is second to none.

How to Trade with Elliot Wave Theory

Elliot Wave Theory is far easier to spot in our diagrams than it is in the markets. Markets don’t always make very perfect patterns. In fact, this is what you might see when looking at an Elliot Wave in action in the foreign exchange market:

Elliot Wave Theory’s Correction Patterns

Elliot was mostly open-ended on the interpretation and application of his wave theory. When it comes to corrections, however, Elliot had very firm guidelines for how these corrective wave patterns would look.

What Is Elliot Wave Theory

The Elliot Wave Theory suggests that market movements can be described with waves. Inside a large up or downtrend are several smaller trends that make up the whole of the market movement.

Reversals, Retracements, and Waves

If you have yet to notice, technical analysis focuses on trends. Remember: the market does trend 70% of the time, and that amount of trending is enough to make serious profits in the market.

Leading and Lagging Indicators

We have explored more than a few indicators in this lesson, some of which you may find practical for use, and some which you may prefer not to use. At the end of the day, technical analysis is all about making informed decisions on the future of the price based on price alone.

How to Use Bollinger Bands

Bollinger Bands may very well be one of the most useful technical indicators. Compared to other trading indicators, you can think of Bollinger Bands as a Swiss army knife—there’s so many uses for them that Bollinger Bands are almost ubiquitous with technical analysis.

Average Directional Index {ADI}

The Average Directional Index, or ADI, is a premier technical analysis indicator that shows investors when markets are trending. We can use the ADI to find key points of entry, and explore when a buy or sell ahead of a trend makes sense.