When dealing with a fluctuating market, it is essential to trade using short-term cycles, and if you want to profit, take profits promptly. If you follow the prevailing trend, you can afford to widen your stop-loss a bit.
In a fluctuating market, short-term cycles can quickly capture profits and react faster to market reversals. If you trade using long-term cycles, you either miss the initial opportunities or end up with frequent stop-losses.
However, if there is a clearly defined long-term trend, you should try to adopt a long-term trading strategy. It is not effective to take small profits and run; constantly entering and exiting can easily lead to market pullbacks or deep adjustments, which can create a conflict between stop-losses and following the trend.
So how can we distinguish whether the current market is trending or fluctuating?
It’s actually quite simple: after a significant drop or rise, it typically becomes a fluctuating market, with prices unable to move up or down, oscillating back and forth.
If the market has been fluctuating for a long time and suddenly breaks out one day to reach a new high in weeks, it generally indicates the arrival of a trending market. At this point, you should prepare for long-term profits and not easily abandon your positions.
As long as you observe carefully and rely on your experience, you will naturally understand what the current market trend is and how to act!