There are such a lot of signals available in technical charting that it is sometimes tough to know which to use. However, there’s little to stop a day trader from simply fixing the period of time to fit with the fifteen minute, five minute or even the one minute chart. The stochastic indicator is then just as handy for a day trader as it’d be for a trader following long term trends. Stochastics measure the difference between the last final price and the price movement over a certain prior number of time periods. You can adjust the number of time periods in your technical charting according to your system, but fourteen is the number typically used. It looks to be a mystical number for oscillating signals, giving an adequately long range to be relatively accurate without being so long that it loses relevance for the current time. This speed does not relate to the amount of time periods that it covers, but how swiftly it will reply to a change in direction from bullish to bearish or vice versa. The fast stochastic is more reactive, like a fast auto. This is the mathematical formula for fast stochastics:
This is explained well by considering Forex 5 Stars. %K = 100((C – L14)/(H14 – L14))
C = last closing price, L14 = lowest low in the past fourteen periods, H14 = highest high during last 14 periods. There’s also a signal line %D which is a 3 period moving average of %K. Stochastic based trading systems usually take a signal from the crossover of the two lines %K and %D. But some traders find it replies to changes in movements in prices too fast, leading to a premature signal. Thus slow stochastics were developed. The slow stochastic indicator applies a 3 period moving average to the %K of the first equation. The new %D is then a three period moving average of the new slow %K. The slow indicator is thus the one which is most often utilised by day traders. Part of the fact that stochastics are often ignored by day traders is that they focus on the fast stochastic while in fact the slow stochastic would serve them far better. It can be extremely effective, so examine it in your charts or look for a technical charting service that provides it.