OptiNod Academy
Indicators
Browse all 28 parts in the Indicators series and start from the section you need.
SMA — Simple Moving Average
Do not treat the 200-day line as a simple trend filter. Judge trend strength by how price moves through it.
EMA - Exponential Moving Average
Use changes in the angle of EMA alignment to spot possible trend reversals before a golden cross.
VWAP — Volume-Weighted Average Price
VWAP plots the breakeven level for most market participants as a dynamic line, then defines the day’s trend by how long price stays above or below it.
Anchored VWAP — The Breakeven Line From a Group’s Average Entry Price
Anchored VWAP is the average entry price of all participants who entered after a meaningful event. It becomes support or resistance because that level is someone’s breakeven.
Bollinger Bands: Volatility Channels
Use the frequency of closes outside the bands and the band-width percentile to judge current volatility. A band touch alone is not enough.
ATR — Average True Range
When ATR is at least twice its 30-day average, reduce position size to keep R-risk constant.
Keltner Channel — A Trend Channel With ATR-Based Width
Bollinger Bands use standard deviation for width; Keltner Channels use ATR. That difference determines how much the channel fluctuates and how suitable it is for trend following.
Donchian Channel — Channel Width Shows Volatility, Breakouts Signal Trends
A simple box built from the N-period high and low is central to trend-following systems. Channel width reflects volatility, while channel breakouts point to the start of a trend.
RSI — Relative Strength Index
Spots when a pullback within a trend is ending, often before volume confirms it.
Stochastic — A Closing-Price Position Oscillator
Know that it is reliable only in range-bound markets, and classify the market first by where the %K/%D crossover occurs: upper band, middle, or lower band.
Stochastic RSI — Applying Stochastic to RSI
A tool that normalizes RSI values using the stochastic formula. Use its highly sensitive short-term timing only for short swings.
Williams %R — Why an Indicator Based on Close Position Stays Pinned in Trending Markets
Williams %R quickly shows where the close sits within the recent high-low range, but the -20/-80 thresholds only matter in range-bound markets.
CCI — Commodity Channel Index
Know that the standard ±100 thresholds lose their edge in turbulent markets, and trust only extremes beyond ±200.
MACD — Moving Average Convergence Divergence
Use changes in histogram length to spot weakening momentum before the MACD crossover.
ADX / DMI - Measuring Trend Strength
Use it as an entry filter: below ADX 20, discard all other trend-indicator signals.
Aroon Oscillator — Time-Based Trend Strength
Track the age of a trend by measuring how recently new highs or lows were made, and use that timing to judge trend fatigue.
Parabolic SAR - An Accelerating Trailing Stop
Use it as a trailing stop for an existing position, not as an entry trigger.
Supertrend — ATR Trailing Stop Color Flip
Use an automatically defined stop distance to build consistent risk-reward.
Chandelier Exit — ATR Trailing Stop
Removes the need to time profit-taking and helps you stay in the trade through normal trend pullbacks.
OBV — Tracking Accumulation and Distribution
Use OBV’s slope inside a range to read the likely direction of the next breakout before price confirms it.
Money Flow Index (MFI) — When Volume Fails to Confirm Price
MFI weighs momentum by volume to measure the weight of money behind a move. When price rises but MFI fails to keep up, it can show capital leaving before RSI does.
Chaikin Money Flow (CMF): The Close’s Position Inside the Candle Shows the Money Flow
Unlike OBV, which only looks at closing-price direction, CMF multiplies volume by where the close lands inside the candle’s high-low range to distinguish accumulation from distribution.
Pivot Points: Intraday Consensus Levels Everyone Is Watching
Pivot points are consensus levels calculated from the previous day’s high, low, and close. The level itself is less important than how price reacts there: whether it breaks through, gets rejected, or retests the level after a break.
Ichimoku Cloud: Five Lines and the Cloud
Focus on the Chikou Span and the future thickness of the cloud to identify trend starts and ends one step earlier.
T3 — Six-Stage Smoothed Moving Average
A smooth curve with less lag than an EMA, used to read trend curvature.
VIDYA — Adaptive Momentum-Weighted Average
A moving average that adapts automatically to volatility, producing fewer false signals in ranges than an EMA.
JMA — Low-Lag Adaptive Average
The smoothest trend line: powerful while a trend is underway, but less reliable at turning points.
The Choppiness Index — A Regime Filter That Warns You When Trend Signals Are Spinning Their Wheels
The Choppiness Index tells you first whether the market is in a state where you can trust a trend signal. It says nothing about direction. It works best as the rule for switching off trend strategies and switching on mean-reversion strategies when the value sits high in a sideways range.