The ACD Method

Quote from Maverick74:

We are not playing for mean reversion here, we actually want exposure in the direction of the ACD signal.

That makes sense. Im no expert, but I assume the risk associated with chasing mean reversion isn't worth the payouts. I'm doing simple directional equity trades for now, but still fascinated with spreads. Just wish I had the brain to profit from them. I love reading up on the stuff though.
 
Here is a review of what the market did this week.

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Quote from gmst:

Hello Everyone,

I discovered this thread 4 days back and have been reading it daily since. This seems like a very fine thread to me. I don't know anything about the ACD method, but some of the other ideas I read about like looking at spreads (XLF-SPY) sound very interesting.

Let me start with my first contribution to this thread. For trading today's NFP, a hedged trade would be to buy 100,000 usdjpy and sell 1 ES contract. Current prices: USDJPY 78.00, ES 1157.

Case 1: If NFP comes out way better than expected, USDJPY will spike 70-120 pips and ES will spike 15-25 points. Book USDJPY profits and leave ES short open. In a day or two once we get some bad news from Europe ES will be back at 1157 or even lower. There is also a strong possibility that ES might sell off today itself after the initial euphoria of good payrolls number is behind us in half an hour or at open. Because a lot of good news (good ADP numbers, swap cut etc.) is already being reflected in ES.

Case 2: If NFP comes bad, USDJPY and ES go down, make money on ES and leave USDJPY position. You might have to hold this USDJPY position for 3-6 days. BoJ has been buying USDJPY and has been doing continuous market intervention in smaller volume since the last big one. So, in next 3-6 days, USDJPY will be back at 78 and then trade can be exited.

While I'm definitely not the most prolific poster on this thread, I have to say please do not turn this into yet another "here's what I think the market will do if X happens" kind of thread.

The entire point of ACD (and price action trading in general) is to REACT to market action, not predict it. The challenge of it is to figure out what is an "actionable event" in the market. In ACD terminology, an "actionable event" is the reaching of an A or C price level. The "why" of it getting there is irrelevant. Save the "why" for the financial journalist hacks who can't make a living trading the markets, so they write about them.

I also say this as someone who's developed my own price action methodology and can tell you that I became a million times better as a trader when I stopped trying to figure out what the market was going to do ahead of time. Just like everyone else, I was watching the markets (specifically, the ES) this morning, but, because I only trade when extremely precise conditions occur, I didn't make a trade at all today. Which is fine because it just means the market is in a state of "limbo" for the moment and neither a long nor a short position makes logical sense.
 
Quote from logic_man:

While I'm definitely not the most prolific poster on this thread, I have to say please do not turn this into yet another "here's what I think the market will do if X happens" kind of thread.

The entire point of ACD (and price action trading in general) is to REACT to market action, not predict it. The challenge of it is to figure out what is an "actionable event" in the market. In ACD terminology, an "actionable event" is the reaching of an A or C price level. The "why" of it getting there is irrelevant. Save the "why" for the financial journalist hacks who can't make a living trading the markets, so they write about them.


Thanks. I will try to keep the discussion around ACD only. Wanted to start posting on this thread with some contribution from my side.

To Maverick/king,logic_man and everyone else:

can someone please give me a primer on what ACD is all about, or point to some reading for an introduction, with probably couple of examples. Before I buy and spend time with "The Logical Trader", it will help if I can get some introduction about the method and the general concept behind it. Thanks.
 
Quote from gmst:

Thanks. I will try to keep the discussion around ACD only. Wanted to start posting on this thread with some contribution from my side.

To Maverick/king,logic_man and everyone else:

can someone please give me a primer on what ACD is all about, or point to some reading for an introduction, with probably couple of examples. Before I buy and spend time with "The Logical Trader", it will help if I can get some introduction about the method and the general concept behind it. Thanks.

A few days ago, Maverick posted a link to "The Logical Trader" online. I think it was the entire book. The thread grows so quickly that it could be 15-20 pages back by now, but it was definitely recent, like within the last 10 days.

My guess is that everyone will have a slightly different take on ACD, but it seems to me that what it's about is finding a statistically-significant set of price behaviors in the market (an A up, for example) and using that as the basis of trade entry, management and exit. On the flip side of that same coin, it's a way of keeping you out of the market when the price behaviors aren't confirming any directional bias. No "A up" or "C down" or whatever, no trade.
 
Quote from gmst:

Thanks. I will try to keep the discussion around ACD only. Wanted to start posting on this thread with some contribution from my side.

To Maverick/king,logic_man and everyone else:

can someone please give me a primer on what ACD is all about, or point to some reading for an introduction, with probably couple of examples. Before I buy and spend time with "The Logical Trader", it will help if I can get some introduction about the method and the general concept behind it. Thanks.

you could throw this on and learn alot of the basics in 2 days.
kudos to Mav who first posted this.

http://vimeo.com/15967639
 
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