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Trends in Global Stocks and Trading

In the financial markets, a trend is generally understood to be the current market direction. Markets can be trending higher, trending lower, or trending sideways. But defining a trend so that it can be profitably traded is something else entirely. Many would say the S&P 500 Index is currently in a bullish trend. But at the same time, the Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq 100 Index have been trading sideways for months. So trends can obviously exist for one sector while another is going nowhere.

Just saying that a trend consists of "rising" prices, or "declining" prices is not enough. Every day is different. A trend must be clearly defined in order to be profitably traded. And what about time frame? Are we talking about a trend on a 5 minute bar chart where it could last an hour? Or is it of longer duration, days, weeks, years?

Correctly identifying and trading financial market trends with mutual funds, ETF`s and even carefully selected stocks, is doable, profitable, and with a well tested trading strategy can achieve results far above "buy-and-hold" investing. Market timing, when following a well thought out trading strategy, is actually "less" risky than a buy and hold approach. A profitable trading strategy will "not" allow a market timer to miss that trade.