Average True Range... and BollingersATR is a great indicator designed to show you the previous ranges of the previous candles depending on the value chosen, in this example I have done 6 periods, so you can see in this chart I have highlighted when we have peaks and troughs and one thing to do is compare the times of day this activity happens, you can see at certain times the atr climbs, it stalls at others or can fall, so ATR is showing us previous candles range, so if you are in a trade you want the range to be growing usually so that your trade can head to TP, but the important thing to takeaway is the fact that price is moving alot, this is because it is experiencing higher level of trading activity price is trending, where as a falling ATR reading means typically things are slowing down or accumulating, remember this doensnt give direction though as price can still move up or down despite a falling range per candle. However what it can do is tell you good times to look for trades, you can filter down by time the best time to take trades based on your strategy winning or losing in the peaks of troughs. ATR can also be used to determine stop losses of TP, by taking the the reading and using a 2xreading stop loss or TP, the more volatile the market the bigger your stop losses and tp will be, but more volatility generally correlates well with that idea, not only does it offer greater protection it also prevents missing out on good moves. So 2nd part is Bollinger bands we can see how it works, it basically again is telling you the range of things, so Id like you to compare the reading on ATR to the Bollingers, and you can see when ATR falls and the Bollingers are squeezing tight we have very little to trade, energy is low and range is small, In crypto I have heard this term called the crab which I have to say... I do find quite amusing. When ATR is rising the Bollingers expand creating a wide cloud, so on the last box, where price falls despite ATR falling... what is the difference this time? That is right, Bollingers are not squeezed together, which tells us the ATR reading is acting like it is small and stuck in a squeezing formation but in fact we are just in an expansion of the Bollinger moving slowly. What do I want you to take away from this? Just a deeper thought about which market conditions are best for your strategy and how to avoid times which will not really offer a good trade yet ect, and have a look for patterns in how you trade around these volatility indicators! Happy trading... More to come
