Home | Previous | Next Lesson This Lesson Can Be Printed See Instructions Below Bollinger Bands RevealedBollinger bands are an integral part of just about every charting system I have ever seen but many traders are unfamiliar with how to use them. In this lesson we will cover the basics of Bollinger bands and one particular technique which I have found to be very reliable.
For our examples we will use the most common setting of a 20 period simple moving average. This will give us 3 bands, the middle band of a 20 period simple moving average and the upper and lower bands calculated around the middle band with standard deviation of 2. The closing price is most commonly used to calculate the moving average.
Bollinger bands can be used to generate buy and sell signals but that is not their primary use. The main purpose of the bands are to:
The squeeze (tightening) is a period of low volatility and often happens before a big move. It can also help identify potential breakout areas. Reversal Trending Following
I like to use Bollinger bands and RSI together to generate possible buy and sell signals or to confirm overbought or oversold areas.
When the RSI reads below 30 and price is touching or pushing through the lower band then I know we are oversold and I will either consider buying the market or close existing short positions. See Chart Experiment with the settings until you find the right parameters for the market you are trading. I have found the bands to be effective on all time frames from 5 minutes to monthly bars.
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