A trend is the dominant directional bias of price over some look-back window. The textbook Dow definition is structural: an uptrend is a sequence of higher highs and higher lows; a downtrend is lower lows and lower highs; everything else is a range.
There are many quantitative proxies for trend: slope of a moving average, sign of ADX-weighted directional indicators, regression slope, fraction of bars closing higher than they opened. Different definitions disagree at the edges — this matters when designing trend filters for backtests.
Trend is timeframe-dependent. The same instrument can be in a daily uptrend, a 4-hour range, and a 5-minute downtrend simultaneously. Multi-timeframe analysis explicitly reconciles these views.
How Noon Barbari uses Trend
Every concept here is implemented in the platform. Open the relevant docs or tool to see it in action.
Trend-following strategies →Related terms
- Market structure
Higher high
A swing high that prints above the prior swing high — the signature of an uptrend.
- Market structure
Lower low
A swing low that prints below the prior swing low — the signature of a downtrend.
- Indicators
Average directional index (ADX)
Trend-strength gauge (0–100). High ADX = strong trend; ADX direction is separate.
- Indicators
Moving average
A rolling average of price over a fixed window, used to smooth noise.