Trading Trends with a Shifted Three-Average Crocodile Indicator

Summary

The article presents a trend-following system built around three shifted simple moving averages, named the jaw, teeth, and lips. When the lines are tangled, the approach treats the market as directionless and waits; when they separate in order, it interprets the arrangement as bullish or bearish. The example opens a long position when price rises above the fastest line or a short when it falls below the slowest, then exits when price crosses the middle line.

The rest is an implementation walkthrough for Chinese commodity futures, covering bar data, indicator calculation, position retrieval, and order placement through a trading platform. It includes a backtest configuration but reports no performance results or comparison with alternatives. The sample code uses inconsistent period and bar-count settings relative to the stated indicator definitions, so its calculations and execution logic require careful checking before use. The document offers a concrete rule set, but provides no evidence that it is profitable after costs or robust across markets and time periods.

Key ideas

• The indicator uses three moving averages shifted forward by different bar counts.
• A tangled set of lines is treated as a reason to stay out until a directional trend appears.
• The example enters when price crosses an outer average and exits on a cross of the middle average.
• The article describes implementation for commodity futures but does not report strategy performance.
• The sample’s indicator periods and offsets should be checked against its stated definitions.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.