Trade with the trend is the most commonly told mantra by the experienced traders. But this difficult task makes trading a little tricky affair. First of all you will have to identify the trend early enough. If you have practiced enough to spot the trend early, the viability of the trend needs to be tested. You should make sure that it is not a fake trend by judging its strength. This is where momentum indicator comes into play. Many such tools are available to perform that task. Some of the prominent indicators are CCI, RSI, and Stochastic.

Commodity Channel Index

Intended to use for commodities, now it is used with many financial instruments to spot the trend, its strength and a possible turnaround. It has many variations each with its own trading rules. The range is from +200 to -200. It is customary to buy when it goes above 100 as the up trend is confirmed. Opposite happens for -100. Zones beyond positive and negative 100 are considered overbought and oversold conditions. Extremely overbought and oversold zones sit beyond 200. When it enters in this territory, you are expected to close the trade. When this momentum indicator crosses the zero line, appropriate trades like long or short should be taken and should be carried till the extremely overbought or oversold zones.

Relative Strength Index

Created by Welles Wilder, this momentum indicator follows the close of candles for a certain period. A typical period is 14. Play with RSI is little different from CCI. Zones beyond 50 are considered as a confirmation of a trend up or down. Overbough and oversold levels are above 70 and below 30 respectively. Unlike CCI, you don’t buy or sell when a zone crosses above 70 or below 30. Once entered into these zones, price tends to stay there for a long time. So if you want to play with RSI, you sell when RSI comes below 70 from above and buy when it goes above 30 from below. A level of 50 is used by many traders. It is also used with trend lines. When this line follows the RSI, there is convergence. If it diverges from the RSI trend, it is a signal to a possible reversal. Understanding how to use RSI trend lines is a competitive advantage because you come to know about it much earlier than with just RSI.

Stochastic

Developed by George Lane, this momentum indicator assumes that the price closes looks to close near its high or low when in uptrend or downtrend respectively. It ranges from 1 to 100 and consists of fast and slow line. Zones below 20 and above 80 are critical. They are called overbought and oversold respectively. Crossing a zone is considered a reversal or just a correction. There are many ways you can use this indicator. The easiest is to sell or buy when the fast line crosses the slow line from above and below respectively. Next play is similar to RSI. Sell when the indicator comes below overbought zone and buy when it goes above oversold zone of 20. You can also use the momentum indicator to find a divergence between the currency price and the stochastic indicator. The divergence implies a correction so you can take appropriate trades.

Momentum indicator is a handy tool if used with some knowledge. You will have to spot the trend well before the masses so that you can make money with lesser risks. The weapons of indicators give you a competitive advantage over others.

Understand how to trade with the trend in a safe manner simply by checking out another look at HotForex brokerage. You may also have a look at the different techniques that can be used when it comes to figuring out the trend ahead of time like for example day trading strategy .