Tag: Technical Indicator

Bollinger Bands

Bollinger bands are a measurement of volatility. This is a very popular indicator created by John Bollinger. They can be used in many different ways. These are created by measuring the 2 standard deviation from a 20 day moving average of the price.They have three part to this technical indicator:

 

The moving average: This is the 20 day simple moving average of the prices

The lower band: The lower band is simple moving average minus the 2 standard deviation. therefore located below the middle band.

The upper band:The upper band is simple moving average plus the 2 standard deviation. therefore located above the middle band.

 

Here is an example of the Bollinger band. We have taken our spread betting graph of the WTI Crude oil:

Crude Oil -Bollingerbands in spreabetting

 

 

Now lets look at how the Bollinger Bands are used in the various spread betting strategies:

Next: Bollinger Bands mean reversion strategy

Parabolic SAR Stop loss

 

As we mentioned earlier the Parabolic SAR Technical Indicator can function as an area where to place your stoploss, this is both to protect your wins while the trend increases or to minimize your loss when the trend goes against you.

GBPUSD -Parabolic SAR as stoploss

The Effectiveness of the Parabolic SAR as a stop loss tool:

1) Initial stop loss

As the market turns around the Parabolic SAR indicates where to place your initial stop loss above or below the stock, indices, commodities trading price. This is placed according to your spread betting strategy, as in the spread betting example above.

2) Trailing stop loss

As the stock, indices, commodities trading price moves higher so does the Parabolic SAR, as it is an adaptive indicator that follows the price trend. It has an Acceleration Factor of 0.02, that is, as prices move higher so does the Parabolic SAR. This giving new levels where to put your stop loss.

3) Protective Stop and Time stop

as the prices move against you, you have protected your profits.

We said the Parabolic SAR indicator is also a Time stop, as time goes by and the prices move higher until they stop behaving as they should, the Parabolic SAR moves closer and closer until it changes direction, letting you out of the trade. thus time is a big factor too in the Parabolic SAR indicator.

 

This is good spread betting tool to add to your spread trading bag of indicators.