Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
Well, what about the service he sells? Is that also useless? I can't see paying someone to give me the daily pivots.
I know you've made this point before about MF not using the method from his book and that your group uses a variation very successfully. I wish you'd elaborate on what in the book is useful if the basic strategy is not. Be long when the market is going up and short when it's going down? The OR is important? Those seem pretty basic. The book outlines an OR breakout strategy with suggestions for filters. That is a strategy that will win big in volatile markets and will get chopped up in range-bound ones. I don't think any amount of tinkering with the basic approach will turn a losing strategy into a winner. Only the market can do that.
I have seen the info on his website and I think it's very valuable. You need to understand that Mark is providing data. What you do with that data is your call. There is no holy grail. There are no magical numbers out there that provide the secrets to trading. His website provides a lot of in depth data on all his ACD data numbers. He provides this data on all the commodities and 100's of stocks. It's your job to take that data and use it to make money.
The book is useful for understanding the foundation of his strategy. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. The details as to how you execute the system is your burden. There is no magical system and if such a magical method existed, do you really think it would sell for 69.95 or whatever his book cost?
I have always said this as long as I have been on ET, there is no such thing as a good or bad trading strategy, only good or bad traders. A bad trader will always find ways to lose money. A good trader will always find ways to make money.
What I like about the ACD system, at least how we use it, is that it does not use magical levels that everyone is watching. It does not use moving averages, fibonacci ratios, oscillators, candlesticks, etc. all that crap. Our system is volatility based and tries to interpret market conditions and probabilities rather then using crap like market is overbought or oversold. Or using fundamentals like the economy sucks, I'm getting short. It doesn't use support or resistance levels, like nobody with a freaking computer can see those magical levels.
There is a lot of great info in his Logical Trader book if you stop looking for answers and start looking for information. I think it's one of the better books out there on discipline and market approach. How many guys out there actually eat what they cook? This guy actually talks the talk and backs it up with his own money and his own trading. He actually trades his method. As do we.