Forex Trends: How to Profit from them?
What are the characteristic signs of a trend?
1. Rising Volatility: Trends are in general accompanied by rising volatility with volatility defined according to the textbook method. What this means in practical terms is that the size and speed of successive swings of the trend tend to get faster, on average, as the trend progresses.
2. Flags and Pennants: This are ubiquitous in trends, and are thought to be highly reliable by a majority of traders. Flags and pennants represent brief, quick consolidation periods that present excellent opportunities for new orders, but do not lead to new developments.
I thought it was just price going on the same direction for some time 
Fortunately I still believe that.
Nice topic. i am also using moving averages and bollinger band. They are working nice with my fibo method. i am currently using 5, 15 and 50 ma and 100 ema currently for trading and got 227 pips in march.
Moving Averages
Along with trend lines, moving averages are the simplest tools in trend following. But that does not imply that they are ineffective. On the contrary, one can make use of moving averages as a highly effective means of guessing potential support-resistance lines in the context of short-term price movements.
It is easy to observe during trading that the price tends to move by jumping between successive moving average levels. In a 15 minute chart, for instance, we note that price movements breach 30- 50- 100- 200- minute MAs while moving in a straightforward way during much of the rest of the time. Trading the trend involves taking advantage of these movements by placing limit entry/exit orders, take profit, or stop loss points to coincide with them.
Trading with moving averages is not difficult, but one must be careful with his risk controls due to the tendency of trends to `overshoot` the levels indicated by MA analysis. Without adequate care, this may result in sizable losses to the trader.
Bollinger Bands
Bollinger bands are not very useful in trading trends directly. Many traders use them to open or close positions on the basis of signals generated through the interaction of price action with the outer bands, but the evidence supporting the effectiveness of this strategy is flimsy at best.
In our opinion, the best use of Bollinger bands is for examining volatility. In this strategy, traders confirm any breakout from a previously well-established support or resistance with a favorable signal from the Bands, and consider the trend established only when a predetermined a level of volatility is reached (that is, the Band reach a specified distance from each other). Similarly, exit orders are placed when the bands begin to contract to a predetermined level, suggesting that the price action is losing momentum.
Expanding Bollinger Bands can serve as a confirmatory signal for a new trade.
Trend Lines
Trend lines are some of the easiest and simplest tools in trend analysis; they are also very effective. Trading with trend lines involves using them as a springboard for trade decisions. You simply open positions as the price action hits the trend line (a short position in a downtrend, a long position in an uptrend). Positions can be closed on the basis of oscillators such as the RSI at the risk of failing to realize your profits in full. Another way to take profit is realizing your gains each time the price hits the trend line, and opening another position to continue exploiting the trend with minimal risk, in a variation of the layered entry method.
In short, if you trade with trend lines alone, stop-loss orders will be easy to place, but taking profit requires a bit more attention.
Conclusion
Trend following is a simple and straightforward method, and it is highly profitable as well. We will conclude this article by suggesting that the reader combine these tools into a workable strategy as an exercise.
Create your trend following strategy with the help of moving averages, trade according to the support and resistance lines indicated by them. If you have access to order flows, so much the better, trade to exploit order clusters whenever you can. Place your stop-loss order on the trend line. Activate your position in light of the Bollinger Bands. Keep in mind that trends move fast and reverse without warning, but still remain alive on the longer term. Success in surviving volatility by the application of sound risk controls, and exploiting the main movement over the life of the trend is a sign that you are on your way to becoming a great trend trader.
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Forex Trends: How to Profit from them?
Article written by http://www.forextraders.com
Trends are familiar to the general public. News reports speak about them all the time, and even housewives have an idea that some people benefit greatly from them behind the scenes. If you want to be one of those people, you`re at the right place.
Since price action behaves like fractals and is self-similar, one can speak of both short and long term trends from the same technical perspective. Apart from the higher cost of trading in the short term (due to the cost of the broker spread), and the role of fundamental analysis (which we won`t examine here) trading a trend in a short- or long-term scenario creates identical scenarios for the trader.
In this article we assume an ideal trading environment, that is, the broker spread is supposed to be zero.
What are the characteristic signs of a trend?
1. Rising Volatility: Trends are in general accompanied by rising volatility with volatility defined according to the textbook method. What this means in practical terms is that the size and speed of successive swings of the trend tend to get faster, on average, as the trend progresses.
2. Flags and Pennants: This are ubiquitous in trends, and are thought to be highly reliable by a majority of traders. Flags and pennants represent brief, quick consolidation periods that present excellent opportunities for new orders, but do not lead to new developments.
Needless to say, there exist quite strong and credible signals that can be derived through fundamental methods, too. But we will leave their discussion to another article.
Trends can be traded with the following technical tools.