Indicator for channelling markets?

Hopefully this isn't a silly question.. Does anyone know of an indicator (and its values) that would indicate that a price could likely form a channel rather than breaking out into a trend?

Such an indicator would be one that considers momentum im guessing...

My lesson for today was trend/breakout techniques can loose a painful amount if run over channelling markets.. some examination of the momentum in the prices may be able to clue to being wary of these?

Thanks for any advice.

Actually.. may have answered my own question.

The price action on the shorter timeframe's can be used to determine momentum? If a longer timeframe is moving, but shorter timeframes are pretty much flat.. would this be a strong clue that the price (on any timeframe) isn't going to break out anytime soon? Hmmm.

Any advice welcome.

perhaps look into ATR. if price consistently doesn't move at certain times then that would suggest you shouldn't bother trading those particular times. just sayin...

You can have a steady trend with a low ATR. I think the OP is looking for a flat (non-trending) indication.

A linear regression channel would tell you direction and volatility. There are some custom indicators for LR floating around out there that might do the trick.

Hmm, perhaps my initial question was a bit strange. Having an indicator somehow pick what a price is going to do at a price level, reverse, consolidate, or break out, could be a bit much to ask?

I've looked at ATR before, it sounds very sound in theory. I do use the width of the channel formed by bollinger bands (1 deviation!) to the same effect, so to keep life simple will pass on atr.

Thanks for the tip on the linear regression channel. Not exactly sure how this is used in large, but for me, the angle of the channel it draws, and particular changes in that angle over an interesting time range, looks like it would be great for spotting those creepy trends, that are difficult to spot on the fly, but 3 hours later turn into great trades that went missed. Yes, with these, on the quicker chart, the price action is (relatively) weaker than normal trading, but still creates a trend on the higher chart.

Thanks!

Though, if by chance some indicator does exist, that somehow gives a reading of strength in the price action.. or how much potential energy a price pattern has a particular time, would be interested to hear about it.

Guess that's one of the main tasks for trading in the first place.. to work this out But thinking about it..my manual process (using multiple timeframes) is doing just that.. so would there be an algorithmic way to get a clue also?

When you're teaching yourself to trade, its sometimes like the blind leading the blind. Actually, it is the blind leading the blind until its not. But why take the fun part away?

ADX is what i was after.

And at a high level, after that, oscillators should take over.

this may be useful for channels: