What's your strategy for a sideways year?

When the big pairs trade the same range for months, trend strategies starve and patience dies. Sideways years are the quiet killers of accounts that thrived in trending ones.

What's your strategy for a sideways year? — trend versus range diagram
A trending market compared with a ranging one

How do you survive them?

  • how you detect the sideways regime early
  • the adjustments that keep you profitable or flat
  • the sideways stretch that tested you hardest
What's your strategy for a sideways year? — support and resistance diagram
Price bouncing between support and resistance

The Bollinger guide and ATR guide describe compressed regimes.

Background: Bollinger Bands explained: the squeeze, band walks and mean reversion

Bollinger Bands wrap a moving average in two volatility bands. Learn how they're calculated, what a squeeze means and why touching a band isn't a signal on its own.

What are the standard Bollinger Bands settings?

A 20-period simple moving average, with bands 2 standard deviations above and below it.

Is touching the upper Bollinger Band a sell signal?

Not on its own. In a strong uptrend price can ride the upper band for a long time. A touch shows price is stretched relative to recent volatility, which needs other evidence before it becomes a trade.

Read the full guide

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