What Indicators Do You Use to Confirm a Trend Before Entry?

[Ali Akbar]

I keep running into the same problem — I catch a move using a single indicator (usually MA crossover or RSI), but a good chunk of my entries turn out to be false signals in choppy/ranging conditions.

For those of you with a consistent process, I'm curious:

1. Do you use a single confirmation indicator, or stack 2-3 together (e.g., MA + ADX, or RSI + volume)?

2. How do you personally distinguish a trending market from a ranging one before even looking for an entry signal?

3. Does your confirmation logic change between timeframes (scalping vs swing)?

4. Any indicator combination you tried that looked good in theory but failed once you backtested it properly?

Not looking for "the holy grail indicator" — more interested in how people structure their actual decision process before pulling the trigger.

[Ryan L Johnson]

Ali Akbar:
Do you use a single confirmation indicator, or stack 2-3 together (e.g., MA + ADX, or RSI + volume)?

Here is a stack of 3 combined indicators (ATR, StdDev, and MA) for such purpose:

Code Base

Brooky Trend Strength for MT5

Ryan L Johnson, 2025.04.29 19:52

This indicator calls 3 other subwindow indicators. All files go in your Indicators folder.

[Van Minh Nguyen]

Ali Akbar:

I keep running into the same problem — I catch a move using a single indicator (usually MA crossover or RSI), but a good chunk of my entries turn out to be false signals in choppy/ranging conditions.

For those of you with a consistent process, I'm curious:

1. Do you use a single confirmation indicator, or stack 2-3 together (e.g., MA + ADX, or RSI + volume)?

2. How do you personally distinguish a trending market from a ranging one before even looking for an entry signal?

3. Does your confirmation logic change between timeframes (scalping vs swing)?

4. Any indicator combination you tried that looked good in theory but failed once you backtested it properly?

Not looking for "the holy grail indicator" — more interested in how people structure their actual decision process before pulling the trigger.

In my experience, I prefer using a few filters with clearly different purposes rather than stacking many indicators.

For example, I use trend structure for direction, ADX for trend strength, and RSI/volume as additional context. If price is moving sideways and trend strength is weak, I usually avoid taking trend-following signals.

I’ve also found that adding more indicators doesn’t necessarily improve a system. The important part is defining what each filter is supposed to confirm and then validating the combination through proper backtesting

[Sergey Golubev]

Filters - thread with indicators

Market Condition Evaluation based on standard indicators in Metatrader 5 - the thread