There is a mindset that permeates my personal forex trading. It is recognize, react, and repeat. These goals are only achievable through chart study and flexible order execution. The common fallacy is that there needs to be some new study or new order execution capabilities to accomplish this specifically in the forex market. Trading the forex market is not unlike trading stocks or futures; however there are the challenges that can only be presented by a market that trades 24 hours a day.

Almost any technical analysis tools can be an asset to trade set up if it is used in the proper market environment. Failing to do this is often why so many traders fail in their pursuit and continued use of technical analysis. There are plenty of charting providers that offer both entry-level and advanced charting and technical analysis.

The trend however seems to be to access these services from execution platforms. This can be problematic as some brokerages, certainly well equipped to execute orders, often are not capable of offering much more than entry level or intermediate charting and technical analysis tools at best. This is not to say they are anot effective for traders. Simply put they are not necessarily effective for all traders.

Moving averages
There are tools that can easily be applied to most charts to allow traders to, for example, gauge the strength or weakness of a particular pair or time frame. One tool commonly used are moving averages. Moving averages are perhaps the best tool that any trader can apply to a trending market. Every trader must understand that the market moves in cycles. These cycles transition constantly and in no set order from a quiet sideways channel, to an uptrend, to a wider ranging, more volatile sideways range, to a downtrend.

All this means is that in order to best gauge momentum, whether upside or downside, a trader must first identify the type of market cycle prices are trading within. This can be as easy as recognizing sideways market to trending markets. As simple as this may sound, it unfortunately is the single largest stumbling block for traders.

By multiple moving averages a trader can recognize market cycles and therefore employ the correct technical analysis. This analysis can be applied to almost any charting platform

By applying multiple moving averages to any chart a trader can gauge the strength, weakness, or lack of trend by simply measuring the angle at which the moving averages are plotting. Another tool that can help a trader identify the onset, strength, or weakness of a trend is the MACD Histogram.