The Concept of Trend
Charles Dow is probably best known as the founder of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However, it was during his time as editor of the Wall Street Journal that he produced a series of articles examining stock market behavior, and it was from these editorials that “Dow Theory” evolved.
Dow theory provides us with a clear definition of trend. Dow described how prices did not rise or fall in a straight line but moved in a series of zigzags which resembled waves and it was the relative positioning of the peaks and troughs in these waves that defined the trend.
For a stock to be in an uptrend, it must make successive higher peaks (highs) and higher troughs (lows). For a stock to be in a downtrend, it must make lower peaks (highs) and lower troughs (lows).
Uptrend - higher highs and higher lows
Down Trend- higher highs and higher lows
Consolidating Price Action - higher highs and higher lows
Consolidating marketsAs we discussed earlier, P.A.or “price action trading analysis” is the analysis of the price movement of a market over time. From our analysis of price movement we can determine a market’s underlying directional bias or “trend”, or if the market has no trend it is said to be “consolidating”…we can easily determine whether a market is trending or consolidating from simply analyzing its P.A.. We saw how to determine a market’s trend above, to determine if a market is consolidating we just look for an absence of the HH, HL or LH, LL patterns. In the chart below note how the “consolidating price action” is bouncing between a horizontal support and resistance level and is not making HH, HL or LH, LL but is instead going sideways…
The image example below shows a market moving from a consolidation phase to a trending phase:
Uptrend - higher highs and higher lows
Consolidating marketsAs we discussed earlier, P.A.or “price action trading analysis” is the analysis of the price movement of a market over time. From our analysis of price movement we can determine a market’s underlying directional bias or “trend”, or if the market has no trend it is said to be “consolidating”…we can easily determine whether a market is trending or consolidating from simply analyzing its P.A.. We saw how to determine a market’s trend above, to determine if a market is consolidating we just look for an absence of the HH, HL or LH, LL patterns. In the chart below note how the “consolidating price action” is bouncing between a horizontal support and resistance level and is not making HH, HL or LH, LL but is instead going sideways…
The image example below shows a market moving from a consolidation phase to a trending phase:
By identifying these peaks and troughs, we can not only describe the current trend and put it in its historical context but, just as importantly, determine when it is changing. We do this by looking at the patterns formed by the peaks and troughs and this is covered in the next section (Major Reversal Patterns).