THE third screen uses intraday trends to help you enter positions. When the weekly trend is up, you want to buy each time the daily countertrend pushes prices down. But you also want to protect yourself from the danger that the countertrends may continue even lower.
The third screen helps you benefit from the buying opportnities while protecting you from the risk that the brief downtrend may turn into a major one. In major doen trends, it helps you benefit from shorting into countertrend rallies while protecting you from the risk that those rallies will become bullish reversals.
This screen consists of using trailing stop techniques (not to be confused with stop-loss orders). A trailing buy-stop order trails above the
prrevious day's range on the way down, angling for the upside reversal. A trailing sell-stop order trails below the previous day's range on the way up to catch a renewed downturn.
If the daily oscillotor goes negative on Tuesday while the weekly trend is up, then place a buy order, good for Wednesday only, above Tuesday's high. If the weekly trend pushes back up, as you expect, you will be "stopped in ," automatically buying a short-term breakout from the intermediate downtrend.
If prices continue lower on Wednesday, you remain out of the market. You lose nothing, but the buy signal remains in effect as long as the oscillator remains in negative territory. Then, on Thursday you place a buy order, good for one day only, above the Wednesday high. You continue this procedure until you are either "stopped in" on an upside reversal or a bearish trend is signaled by the weekly MACD, canceling the buy signal.
This buy-stop technique is reversed to a sell-stop technique for shorting when the weekly trend is down but the daily oscillators rally into positive territory.
To be continued with "Three Screen Summary; and Maintaining A Stop"
Thus, the triple screen system consists of three consecutive screens or tests, each applied before entering any market position:
1. Identify the major trend, using a MACD histogram on weekly charts.
2, Identify the intermediate daily trend running counter to the major trend. Use short-term oscillators, such as force index, Stochastic or Williams'%R. When the weekly MACD is bullish, watch for daily oscillotor declines. When the weekly MACD is bearish, watch for daily oscillotor rallies.
3, When the weekly trend is up and the daily oscillator is negative, use a trailing buy-stop technique to enter or add long positions. When the weekly trend is down and the daily osicllator is positive, use a trailing sell-stop tehcnique to enter or add short positions.
MAINTAINING A STOP
Using stop-loss and protect-profit orders is essential in trading futures. After the triple screen system gives you a buy signal and you go long using the trailing buy-stop technique, your new stop-loss level becomes the low of the day you went long or the low of the previous day, whichever is lower. That low will rarely be violated because you are trading in the direction of the market tide. Reverse the procedure in downtrends. This gives you tight protection with relatively low dollar risk.
Conservative traders should buy or sell on the first signal from the triple screen system and stay with those positions until the weekly rend reverses or until stopped out. Aggressive traders can use renewed buy or sell signals from the triple screen system for pyramiding or adding to the original positions.