Avoiding the chop basically comes down to defining yourself as a trend trader. Once you have decided to be a trend trader then you need to define when there is a trend and when there is not. I'll tell you this - there are many, many ways/ideas to identify trend vs. chop, but nothing is perfect. There is no magical bullet to IMO to make this work, your risk management and money management will be vital.
Some ideas in regards to this and also looking at your chart:
1) If you can buy your first green arrow and ride that to the top, obviously a nice trade. I see your first red arrow which could signal to get short so there's a potential issue there - your first long on the green arrow is a great entry, the first red is a terrible exit and also a terrible place to go short b/c you then either get stopped or reverse long (which you were already long from before). If you a trying to follow the trend, there's gotta be a way to not have the first red arrow show up. That arrow to short appeared in an obvious uptrend (after the fact of course).
2) Your chart has plenty of trend following indicator - moving averages, ADX, etc. Might want to consider something that is non-trend following and see if you can get it all to line up. In other words, if your moving averages + your non-trending marker are both saying get long, might be a good area to get long.
3) Along those lines you might want to define support/resistance somehow. For example, could use pivots, fib retracements/extensions, etc. When you get a trend signal to get long & it's just above your support or resistance, I would take it. If you are buying right into strong resistance, could spell trouble.
4) I've never found any value of CCI. It can hang in oversold/bought conditions for awhile. Good example
here on stockcharts actually. Look at the chart at the bottom - that CCI is held up in 'oversold' conditions for awhile. Knowing when to use CCI as a reversal vs. continuation play is not easy.
5) In your indicator at the bottom, when there is a strong trending move, your indicator appears to produce taller lines; whereas the lines are much smaller during the chop. If there's a way to quantify that, you could find what you are looking for. Visually it's easy to see now, after the fact, so you'd need to quantify it somehow.
6) You'll also need to identify what kind of 'trend trader' you are trying to become - in other words, if you believe you have identified the trend of the day, week, etc. then you should really only be taking trades that direction - meaning if you believe we are bullish, I would only be taking longs. That could be a great filter for you here if you can identify the bullish/bearish bias ahead of time. If you pull up a daily ES chart (with nothing on it but candles) are we in an up-trend or down-trend? Personally, I'd say up. If that's the case, maybe there's a way to only take your long(s).
7) Also, you'll want to research how many of these trending moves occur per day. There will be days of monster moves that go in 1 direction, but those are rare. Knowing that, not sure how many trades you should be taking per day if working a trend following system. For example, in your chart if your bias was to get long, then you have your long at green arrow 1. Whenever you get out, you should either a) be done for the day or b) looking for another way to get long again. But again that requires having your bullish/bearish bias ahead of time.
8) Research time of day movements as well. I have a post here somewhere talking about this, but basically the market has 3 stages as far as I am concerned: a) AM b) lunch c) PM. AM = volume and moves. lunch/pm = 50/50 shot if there will be volume present to provide moves.
Good luck in your quest. If you are serious, you got your work cut out for you but the reward is well worth it if you get there.
.... so any help will be welcome...
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