Questions about Chart Periods

Hey!

I can't find anywhere else how much is one "period", for instance, regarding Moving Average.
If I want to take a look at MA which shows how it has changed during the last month, how many
periods should I chose?

Thanks!

Hello Captialfm,

If you are viewing a monthly chart then 30 periods, if you are viewing an hourly chart then 30*24 = 720 periods and so on.

Good luck,
olympus999

Both the question and the answer are misleading. Looking at a monthly chart, if you choose a 30 period moving average, you will get a plot of the average price of the previous 30 months.

If you want to play with moving averages, best to set it at (1) and various intervals up to, say, (200), and then observe how the lines reflect how the price moved. The 20ma is popular because it displays a rolling month of trading on the daily chart.

This.

The period basically will depend on the TF you are using. Hourly chart = MA of the last x (user input) hours. Daily = MA of the last x days. So on and so forth.

I disagree......do not just play around with settings until you trick your brain into believing that the market reacts to some arbitrary line.


think of the reasons why Averages are used, and why this would be helpful for anyone attempting to make sense of random-like data.


here is the asnwer to your question= a period is an observation, in our cases according to "time frames" it is usually made up of the closing price.

if you are using a one minute chart a 60SMA would be adding up the last 60 closing prices divided by 60 getting an average of 60 minutes.

if you're looking at a daily chart then each peariod is the closing day of the daily candle so a month would be about 21 or 22 because we do not trade all 30 days I think is more like 5.5 days or so out of the week that the market is open.

if you need me to clarify further then let me know.

if you are looking at a monthly chart then to get the average you could use (hi+low)/2 some do (hi+lo+close)/3