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There is no right or wrong setting for an indicator. It really depends on your trading or investing style (timeframe, objectives, risk tolerance etc...). One of the best ways to find your ideal settings is to display the same indicator in different windows with different settings. The chart below shows the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) with the TRIX indicator four times. TRIX (15,9) is the 1-period percent change in the 15-day Triple Smoothed exponential moving average. The signal line is the 9-period EMA of TRIX. The big window shows TRIX positioned behind the price plot, which makes it easy to compare the indicator to price.
Click this image for a live chart
The lower windows show the TRIX with three different settings. The first window shows the default settings (15,9). This produces a line similar to MACD (12,26,9), but a little smoother. Those looking for more sensitivity may want to shorten the timeframe. The middle window shows the TRIX set at (5,9). This version is much more volatile. The bottom window shows the TRIX with a longer timeframe for less sensitivity (45.9). This is clearly the smoothest, but the least reactive, of the three. See our ChartSchool article for more on TRIX.
