thanks rashidin, i'll try that. however, i can't help but be reminded of benoit mandelbrot's statement in his book 'the (mis)behavior of financial markets' that technical analysis is akin to financial astrology. the reason i am thinking about this again is that when you consider what a MA is from a mathematical standpoint, well, it's a statistical computation on a past time series of prices. there is no future information whatsoever in there.
and thus the problem i have--again, from a mathematical standpoint--is this: how could displacing a MA by x periods make it suddenly become in any way or shape a predictor of future price action? it's just the same past info but graphically shifted to the right on the chart. how is this even remotely significant? i don't understand what diNapoli was thinking here.
nonetheless, try i shall and see what comes out of it.
in this regards, i think john bollinger's bands is a much more powerful tool and mathematically sound to give enough confidence in trend direction probabilities as established by all other technical tools one might use.
could somebody with more knowledge on this shine the light of truth on this foggy swamp?