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Glossary / Market structure

Trend

Definition

A sustained directional bias in price.

Why it matters

Trend-following strategies have low win rates and large winners, so judging them on win rate alone leads traders to abandon working systems.

Example

Higher highs and higher lows on the daily with price above a rising 50-day average is a trend; fading it needs a much better reason than a feeling that it has gone too far.

How to track it in a journal

TradeStack calculates the core performance numbers — win rate, average win and loss, profit factor, expectancy, drawdown and consistency — automatically from imported trades, so trend stops being something you estimate and becomes something you read.

Related terms

Slippage
The difference between your expected fill price and the price you actually get.
Spread
The gap between the best bid and the best ask.
Liquidity
How much size a market can absorb without moving price.
Volatility
How much price moves over a given period.

Keep reading

Trading journal guides
Expectancy, profit factor, drawdown, backtesting and the PDT rule.
Free trading calculators
Position size, risk-reward, expectancy and options profit.
Expectancy calculator
Expected profit per trade from your own numbers.
Broker CSV export guides
Step-by-step exports for Tradovate, NinjaTrader, IBKR and more.
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