The indicator was first developed by Patrick Mulloy in a February 1994 article of Traders magazine. Although the calculation is actually based on both a simple MA and a double EMA. Double exponential moving average (DEMA)ДЄs the name suggests, the double exponential moving average (DEMA) is a faster version of the exponential moving average. The EMA is also very popular and available on nearly all trading and technical analysis platforms. It is therefore able to react faster to new trends but could therefore lead to more whipsaws. (More recent price data is weighted in an exponential fashion). The exponential moving average works in the same way as the simple moving average but it gives greater weight to more recent price moves. We have already seen how the simple moving average is calculated so the next most popular moving average is known as the exponential moving average (EMA). Shows first 8 moving averages plotted together Exponential moving average (EMA) In the rest of this article, I shall go through nine different types of moving averages and then we shall put them to the test on historical stock market data to see which one is best. However, by making the calculation more complex, many developersВ have attempted to come up with faster and smoother versions, designed to better track trends. Nowadays, all you need to do is click a button and the moving average can be plotted onto your price chart. The simple moving average is fairly easy to calculate and so the indicator is carried by nearly all trading platforms. Different types of moving averagesД«ecause of this trade-off between noise and lag, a number of traders have attempted to improve on the simpleВ moving average calculation. Slower MAвЂ™sВ are better at smoothing noise but they can be late to find new trends.

Faster MAвЂ™s respond to new trends quickly but they show more noise and lead to more whipsaws. Thus, all moving averages are a trade-off between noise and lag. The longer the look-back (or number of days/periods used in the calculation) the more lagging the indicator will be.ДЇor example, a 5-day moving average will be a lot more responsive to recent price moves than a 200-day.В However, because of this,В a 5-day moving average will also have considerably more noise, negating the effect of the moving average in the first place. Since they make a calculation based on previous price data, they can only ever tell you what has happened in the past and not the future. The biggest problem with moving averages (like all technical indicators) is that they are lagging indicators. This is a bearish signal for a trend follower, telling them to close their long trade or go short the market. When the fast moving average crosses back under the slow moving average, it signals that the uptrend has come to an end and a new downtrend is in place. When a fast moving average (such as a 5-day MA) crosses over a slow moving average (such as a 20-day MA) it signals a new uptrend is taking place and is a bullish signal for a trend follower, telling them to buy the market. The most common way to use moving averages is to look for moving average crossovers and this technique has been used by many successful trend followers. They filter out the noise which makes it much easier to see what direction a market is heading. Moving averages smooth past price data so traders can more objectively see the recent trend. Moving averages plot the average price of a security over a set number of periods or days and theyвЂ™re an extremely popular tool used by traders to determine the overall trend.

Two different strategiesВ and markets are tested.

In this post I test nineВ different moving averages in order to see which is the best moving average for trading.

20 and 200 ema strategy