The #1 Trading Indicator for 2026 - World Champions reveal the ONLY thing that matters!

The best indicator for the year 2026. What do you think is the right and the best indicator for trend following trading, for breakout trading or for counter trading? I give you a lot of opportunities, but especially I give you very deep the special ideas you can use for your trading style. I think you will love it. I translated this video with AI Become. I'm not a native English speaker, but it is amazing.

Good. So, so a wonderful hello to everyone. I'm happy to help you become a bit more aware today about indicators. Which indicators are actually useful, how can you apply them for yourselves and what should you pay attention to if you want to work with indicators? And that's exactly what I want to focus on today. Because there are simply two different market phases that you basically have to consider. One is balanced markets, sideways markets, and the other is trending markets. And even those actually need to be further classified. But since we are currently, let's say, in very steep trending markets, counter trading strategies using corresponding RSI concepts and so on are rather difficult right now. On the other hand, breakout strategies are working exceptionally well. These in turn don't work when we're in a sideways phase. And that's why for me, the top indicator is to choose one that gives me both pieces of information. And that's why today I want to take a look with you at what is actually the best approach, what I need to watch out for, and what problems can arise if I can't identify this classification for myself in advance. Let's start with these conventional moving averages or gliding averages. Yes, they refer to the past. I'm fully aware of that. And here we have a moving average in the middle running along here like this. Now, there are always people who have strategies that aim for when a market moves away from such a moving average or also from the vwap, that it will return to it. And you can often observe that this is the case. Let's assume, for example, here would be a signal. Yes. Then it goes down for a bit. Oh, it doesn't even reach it. Then let's say up here at the Bollinger band, the next signal appears and oh, what luck, it made it. And my take profit was hit. Now let's go even further and it goes back up, reaches the extreme values and starts here. Yes, now we have to go down again. Oh, it's going even higher. And look, now the loss is already twice as big and still increasing. And once again we got lucky, it still made it in the end. Maybe we've already increased opposition three times. That's complete nonsense mathematically. That's what I want to tell you. But now it's about to get really interesting. Now, let's say we start here at. At the market, open here and here and here, repeatedly taking short positions against the trend. And the market simply never returns to this average. You often see this with the VWAP as well, when markets become overheated. And I can tell you the following happens in such a moment. There are traders who, for example, go short here with 1%, and here again and here again. So in total, they've entered three positions, often with their stop loss set somewhere in no man's land. Or there are those nice martingale setups that always rely on the market coming back. And somewhere around here, they have to liquidate their position because the market hasn't returned by the end of the trading day. On a day like this, you don't just lose 1%, no, not even 2%. On a day like this, you can quickly end up losing much more, 7, 8, or even 10% down on your portfolio. And that's the problem, because most people aren't able to judge when they can actually use such strategies. And let's take a look at another chart. Let's go ahead and see what it looks like. When I use an RSI divergence, that simply means that this indicator shows me when markets have been rising for a long time and when markets have dropped very steeply. And now there are these nice methods where people say that whenever extremes are reached, either at the bottom or the top, you should start entering counter trades. And these counter trades are supposed to enable you to make wonderful profits against the trend, ideally with attractive risk reward ratios. But I can tell you, if I use these indicators myself without logic and reason, then yes, I start shorting here. Oh, got lucky. It worked out well. Yeah. And down here, now it's even at the bottom. Now I buy again. Right here I can buy. Wow, it's going up, but it hasn't reached the top yet, because that's my extremum. Oh, now it's going back again. And end of trading. Bam. Damn. Reversal. That's the truth and not what is often told. Let's get in here. Here we go. Short. Wonderful. What a cool short trade. It worked out, but even here we didn't reach the bottom. Now you could say, sure, I always define the VWAP as the corresponding model from which I exit my trades. That's also an option. But that will also come back to bite you when we reach extremes. And that's what I want to get at. That's why we'll go one picture further. Here we have such a beautiful picture with the NSI stretched out a bit longer. And you can see it here. If we take this level here as the upper extreme, then you go short here. Oh, a bit early. And here you go short again and everything's great. Everything went well, everything worked out perfectly. But now I'm doing it again here. And now the big question is, do you really exit here already? Because the market has only made a small move now the indicators are telling me, yeah, that's the average value. We always exit at the average value. Okay, got lucky. But now we're starting to take on these kinds of positions during a really hot trend phase. Take a look here, for example. Oh, that worked out well too. But here it gets critical. You enter the market here and the market doesn't fall anymore. You enter the market here and the market doesn't fall anymore. And then, and I want to show you something, this happens very often and yes, I will present you with a solution for this in a moment when the markets become increasingly parabolic. And this doesn't even look parabolic yet, but you need to know that this is usually the last move. We also always call this the excess, the extreme trend. And during such trend phases, you should never use counter trading mechanics for yourself, otherwise you'll get hit hard in the face. And we definitely want to avoid that because it doesn't help at all. And I can tell you, please forget all, all, all static systems that refer to any indicators whatsoever, individually and in isolation, to use them. Now I want to give you a way to look at the whole thing differently. Take a look here. Let's go into the corresponding market profiling volume profile. What's going on here? Here the market shows me very clearly, let's take this day here, that although downward from the shift, this is the absolute maximum compared to the previous day, but the equilibrium is still playing out at the top. I need to be careful now, of course, I need to know what are the rules of market profile, what are the rules of volume profile? And I can tell you if you simply do the following and look at how the equilibriums, the VPOCs behave, how do they shift? And if they shift upward, overlapping each other, stop doing counter trades. If they shift like they do here, for example, and are more sideways oriented here, you can do some great counter trading. And if you see that they suddenly break out and jump back up here, then you can after this day say, I'm Going to put my counter trading tool aside for now. It might have still worked in this case, but at the latest right here now you're really going to get hit hard. And now the market starts to jump and keep shifting further and further upward. And if the large scale global capital flows, which essentially refers to the substantial trading volumes, continue to keep moving in a consistent trending direction, then you could actually construct your own customized moving average and simply say to yourself, I will only execute this strategy when the VPOC has a specific predetermined distance of X from the previous day's closing level. We could calculate all of that now, right? But we won't. It's perfectly sufficient for you to see that when you have such extremes, you shouldn't use these kinds of processes here. And that's why I can tell you very clearly, for example, when I look at all this on daily charts here, for instance, I had two days. If I start trading counter trades on this day, well then I'm just going to get smacked. At the latest here, I know I can't use this anymore because I can clearly see that the balance is shifting extremely upwards. I want to show you an even more extreme example. So you know that in such times you absolutely shouldn't use any indicators that are aimed at counter trading. Take a look here. I've brought you a nice gold chart and this is just a typical extreme here. The whole time within the previous days, the vpox, the overlaps are very, very relaxed. In the end, that's roughly your median. Now all of a sudden stronger buying comes in on that day. Okay, at first that's still not extreme. Now I can clearly see that the shift is gradually taking place right before my eyes. It's getting more extreme. And now I know that starting tomorrow I definitely shouldn't do any more counter trades unless the next VP shifts back down, shifts back down again. But I have a day or two completely outside my previous balance, my sideways phase and the market is starting to accelerate extremely. What else can I do? And this is perhaps quite interesting and something many people aren't even aware of because I know this from the algo guys. When do they use what they use them exactly in these kinds of market phases, they deploy their counter strategies and just let them run there, so to speak. Algos on counter trades. When these traders observe that the trading volume in one direction or the other, which in this particular case is moving upwards, actually begins to gain significant momentum, they typically employ specific trend following techniques and various breakout strategies for as long as the sustained shift in the video app continues moving upwards for at least two consecutive days. This essentially means that if such a distinct profile appears right here, they do not make the decision to switch to a counter trend approach just yet. However, if there is another subsequent day that looks exactly like this one, then they will transition their positioning back to the original strategy once more. And they have a very clear risk management system that they use to assess how the whole situation is developing. From my personal perspective, it is really all about carefully evaluating the market in terms of its overall trend structures, or alternatively in terms of its internal balance structures. And they really pinpoint this specific movement by meticulously tracking the constant shift in the VPOCs, and not just by looking at other minor shifts. This involves only considering the respective price points derived from the absolute maximum and the absolute minimum values, because then you simply have much greater added value and you can clearly define which market phase you are in. Of course, you can. Now take it a step further. You can go ahead and say, if I understand that after two higher and two lower VPOCs following a balance phase, I shouldn't be taking counter trades anymore. And if I do play counter trades, I can check when can you really see the shift of capital based on volume aspects moving up or down. And you can do this, for example, using footprint charts. And that's exactly how we do it at trade. The traders we go and look at when the balance really shifts from the previous day. And is that movement actually due to real liquidity flowing into the market? Is it accompanied by genuine volume, just as you can clearly see right here on the chart? Or is the bulk of the money still sitting down here, down here and further down here, while up here at these higher levels, there is hardly any trading activity going on at all. Yeah, then I know I can keep playing counter trades. So you might be wondering, what exactly is the most perfect economic indicator for the year 2026? In my personal opinion, the absolute perfect indicator for the year 2026 is actually the remarkable capability to accurately identify and pinpoint by utilizing the VPOX and the associated market profiling structures. Exactly where I can read when significant global institutional capital is flowing in. For example, right here, with this distinct single print on the chart, that's where the market will become trend stable. So at this point in the process, I now have to patiently wait until I see two distinct and similarly formed VPOC patterns appearing within a specific price range once again. And these need to have definitely taken place well below the previous VPOCs, then I can be certain that a potential Market shift is once again a distinct possibility and the overall probability that we will get a successful balance play here is simply present. Consequently, I then turn my corresponding RSI models back on and of course I have to maintain a very close and constant watch on these developments because it can also happen that the market experiences a sudden and very sharp downward movement. But let me tell you something about that as well. The probability of a V reversal in such large markets when you look at the VPOX on daily or weekly charts is relatively small. And let me be very clear. For example, if you see that you have built up a statistic and if you have more than three or four stop losses in a row, you should be working with stops and not with this Martingale system, then you have the opportun to clearly recognize this through your risk management. It looks like we really do have such an extreme event now. That means get familiar with market profiling, look into how you can determine when the VPOCs are shifting and when the balance can no longer be considered healthy, and then only use trend following strategies. Only go for breakouts, only go for trend continuation. If you notice, for example that the market is telling you we are in balance the whole time, then stop using setups that are based on trend following or breakout strategies. So you need to do two things. You need to be able to clearly identify this for yourself and you absolutely have to learn how to do that. When should I expect trend stable markets? Then I go ahead and use trend continuation strategies accordingly. Do I have a trending market? If based on this identification a trend market is to be expected, then only use trend continuation and breakout setups. If I have, and you need to know this is the case in well over 70% of situations, a likelihood of balance, meaning a sideways market, then it's better to look for counter setups which you can easily use with for example oversold methods. But of course even better are counter trading setups in terms of volume, in terms of being able to see in the footprint chart that liquidity is gone. I have a finished auction or something similar. Yes. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you like the way I approach things and why I consider indicators problematic when you look at them in isolation and that the video was helpful to you. Thank you very much.