Alexander Elder's three-timeframe system that filters trades with military precision.
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Overview
The Triple Screen Trading System was developed by Dr. Alexander Elder and first published in Futures magazine in 1986. It addresses one of trading's fundamental paradoxes: trend-following indicators and oscillators often give conflicting signals. The solution is to use different indicator types on multiple timeframes, each serving a distinct purpose.
Screen 1 (Weekly / Long Timeframe): Apply a trend-following indicator such as the MACD histogram or a 13-week EMA slope to a timeframe five times longer than your intended trading timeframe. This screen defines the tide — the major direction you must trade with. If the weekly MACD histogram is rising, only look for buy signals. If falling, only look for shorts.
Screen 2 (Daily / Intermediate Timeframe): Apply an oscillator (Stochastic, Force Index, Williams %R) to the trading timeframe. The oscillator hunts for pullbacks against the weekly trend: buy when the daily oscillator dips to oversold in a weekly uptrend; sell when it rises to overbought in a weekly downtrend.
Screen 3 (Intraday Entry): A trailing buy-stop is placed one tick above the high of the previous bar (for longs) after Screens 1 and 2 are aligned. The stop trails, so if the trade doesn't immediately move in your favour, the order is never triggered. This makes Screen 3 unique — it is a "hard" entry that only fills when price confirms the anticipated move is beginning.
Strategy Code
This is a TradingView Pine Script strategy example for this page concept. Paste it into the TradingView Pine Editor, add it to your chart, and run it in the Strategy Tester.
//@version=6
strategy("Triple Screen Trading System", overlay=true)
fastLen = input.int(20, "Fast Length")
slowLen = input.int(50, "Slow Length")
fast = ta.ema(close, fastLen)This is a thinkorswim ThinkScript strategy example for this page concept. Open thinkorswim, create a custom strategy, paste the script, and apply it to your chart.
def fast = ExpAverage(close, 13);
def slow = ExpAverage(close, 34);
def rsi = RSI(length = 14);
def buySignal = fast > slow and rsi < 65;
def sellSignal = fast < slow or rsi > 75;Join thousands of traders who use auto-Trading to execute this strategy automatically, 24/7.
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