The ACD Method

Quote from Quon:

I see the same in the SPY. Also, SLV has made a monthly A down, (at least according to my levels) and has been quietly moving downward. It's been a nice way to play the rise in the US dollar.

I have an 8 cent 3 day, and while it's not the smallest I've seen, I've been watching fairly closely. If the fed does nothing, and the dollar keeps going higher this could really be a nice trade.
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Covered this SLV short a few days ago...

DRAT!

:)
 
Quote from RCG Trader:

Feedback for Flip.

Flip. ACD is about RISK management. There is no edge in ACD, other than a viable method to control your risk. ACD is about knowing where to get out more than knowing where to get in. Where to get in after a market makes an A is your business. But, when a market makes an A you are not allowed to trade counterbias unless it makes a C. This alone will keep you from being hacked to bits, which is the fate of too many traders. Death by a thousand cuts. ACD eliminates that.

Myself I am a currency trader, profitable, but my equity swings were HUGE! Up 300% one month, only to give it back over the next three. ACD gives traders with a system a way to qualify their signals. ACD guarantees you lose small and win big. At the end of the day, this is all you need to really learn to be an Elite Trader.

Also ACD, if you already have a system allows you to follow many many more markets. Thanks to ACD I can now follow every pair Oanda offers, and normalize my risk. What that means is that I can wait for exactly what I want price action to do, and not just close enuf. If you have not watched the videos Mav put up, please do that. For me, it was like going from a Bachelors to a PhD. Fish gives traders who are breakeven or slightly profitable the tools to turn the corner.

Seriously, watch those videos. Do not skip anything, and watch them all.
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RCG has done an excellent job of outlining the GENIUS of Mark Fisher. Followers of this thread know my admiration for Mark Fisher.

I am not sure if anyone besides maverick ( seems just based off his posts that he may) has traded one instrument based on ACD system for 3,000 hours or more ( live and sim combined) or more.

I have day traded Crude Oil futures based primarily of ACD system for that many hours and it amazes me every day. Just this afternoon , I picked up the book and was reading interviews of traders at the back of Mark Fisher book. I must have read these 10 times already. But something caught my imagination like it never did before.

The point being that more screen time one has with the system , more set ups etc.. becomes clearer over time. I know of at least 8 traders who bought the book on my recommendation and can not seem to find what so special about it. I do not know what to say to them except that they have to practice in SIM and see the results.

I give them Mark Fisher videos to watch emphasizing that Mark Fisher has turned many off the street people and turned them into successful traders provided they were willing to do 2 things;

a) Admit they know nothing about trading.

b) Join " Bust your Ass" club. Whether it takes 2 years, 4 years or whatever they have to stick to the plan.

Majority of home based traders enter the trading profession as a 2nd , 3rd etc.. career. They hit web and get a boat load of theories, systems etc.. and they spend 1,000's of hours and still has nothing to show for.

Genius of " The logical trader" is that it can get a new trader hit the ground running in a relatively short period of time. I did not say become successful trader. What i am saying is ACD system gives them enough to survive while giving them breathing room to develop their system. I am not aware of any other system which does that.

And once a trader gets some screen time under his/her screen like 2,000 or more hours , on days like September 21st and 22 nd - it is PARTY TIME in Mark Fisher world.

In the end the real GENIUS of Mark Fisher system is to develop the confidence when to put paddle to the mettle. To top it off, he wants the whole world to use his system. The more the better unlike some other traders who think they have some secret edge which will evaporate if they share with others.
 
Quote from Quon:

Covered this SLV short a few days ago...

DRAT!

:)
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Why? Was there a level? One of the nice things about ACD is it gives you very good levels for profit targets. On my chart Silver has blown through all of them so until we get the new weekly levels this week, there are no support levels. I know it's very hard, but when you get a runner, you have to stick with it. ACD gives me time cycles and price levels that force that discipline. Don't just use ACD for entries and then make your exists discretionary. The exits are arguably more important then your entries.
 
Thanks Maverick,

I worried that the monthly/weekly ATR had already been reached, and that maybe I'd entered the short already relatively close to the bottom. I didn't have any other indicator to tell me to hang on, (unfortunately) so I took the relatively small profit in the face of what could have been larger.

Any suggestions on where I might focus some more study with regard to hanging on?

I appreciate your insights immensely!
 
Quote from Quon:

Thanks Maverick,

I worried that the monthly/weekly ATR had already been reached, and that maybe I'd entered the short already relatively close to the bottom. I didn't have any other indicator to tell me to hang on, (unfortunately) so I took the relatively small profit in the face of what could have been larger.

Any suggestions on where I might focus some more study with regard to hanging on?

I appreciate your insights immensely!
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Quon, let me offer this advice. I use ACD primarily as a trend following system. In other words, go with the trend and the momentum. It's also a price action based system so ACD is helping me discern between whether we are range bound or trending. So with Silver being in a downtrend, there are two ways I would look to cover the silver short. Either at a critical A level that FAILS or on a confirmed A up on another time frame.

So let's use an example. Assuming you are still short, I would look to cover silver either at a failed weekly A down or a confirmed weekly A up. This would demonstrate two things to me. Either the downtrend is stalling out at the failed A down or it's catching a bid and showing strength now through a confirmed weekly A up. If it's doing neither, I sit. What am I afraid of? If it's not showing any strength and it's in a confirmed downtrend, the wind is at my back.

Let me say that following trends in price is very very difficult. I have never found an effective way to do it until ACD. I've read all the turtle techniques and the use of trailing stops but neither of them address price action. It's going to be very hard to make money over the long run trading trends if you don't actually catch them.
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Quon, let me offer this advice. I use ACD primarily as a trend following system. In other words, go with the trend and the momentum. It's also a price action based system so ACD is helping me discern between whether we are range bound or trending. So with Silver being in a downtrend, there are two ways I would look to cover the silver short. Either at a critical A level that FAILS or on a confirmed A up on another time frame.

So let's use an example. Assuming you are still short, I would look to cover silver either at a failed weekly A down or a confirmed weekly A up. This would demonstrate two things to me. Either the downtrend is stalling out at the failed A down or it's catching a bid and showing strength now through a confirmed weekly A up. If it's doing neither, I sit. What am I afraid of? If it's not showing any strength and it's in a confirmed downtrend, the wind is at my back.

Let me say that following trends in price is very very difficult. I have never found an effective way to do it until ACD. I've read all the turtle techniques and the use of trailing stops but neither of them address price action. It's going to be very hard to make money over the long run trading trends if you don't actually catch them.
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Ok, I see. So just let a smaller time-frame inform your decision based on knowing that you have the macro, "wind" at your back. A failed weekly A down would suggest that the trade's loosing steam, and a confirmed A up would certainly signal a change in direction.

So ultimately the various time-frames can guide you in trades you may already have on, and may be just as good a guide on what you've been doing as much as what you may do next.

This is very helpful.

Many Thanks
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Quon, let me offer this advice. I use ACD primarily as a trend following system. In other words, go with the trend and the momentum. It's also a price action based system so ACD is helping me discern between whether we are range bound or trending. So with Silver being in a downtrend, there are two ways I would look to cover the silver short. Either at a critical A level that FAILS or on a confirmed A up on another time frame.

So let's use an example. Assuming you are still short, I would look to cover silver either at a failed weekly A down or a confirmed weekly A up. This would demonstrate two things to me. Either the downtrend is stalling out at the failed A down or it's catching a bid and showing strength now through a confirmed weekly A up. If it's doing neither, I sit. What am I afraid of? If it's not showing any strength and it's in a confirmed downtrend, the wind is at my back.

Let me say that following trends in price is very very difficult. I have never found an effective way to do it until ACD. I've read all the turtle techniques and the use of trailing stops but neither of them address price action. It's going to be very hard to make money over the long run trading trends if you don't actually catch them.
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Mav, do you calculate the sharpe ratio of your trading results? (I'm aware that it's not so straightforward to calculate in a prop trading environment due to not having a specific capital but rather a flexible buying power)

The reason I ask is because you mention turtle techniques, the difficulty of trend following etc.

I actually find it not that hard to develop a trend following system (diversified, trading the usual suspects, i.e. indices, bonds, commodities, currencies) that resembles what typical CTAs are doing. However, that's in the region of sharpe ratio ~ 1, which might be okay when thinking in terms of what CTAs are delivering, but I can imagine that's not really attractive in a prop trading environment, where sharpe ratios will be much higher, although on a smaller capital basis.

So I guess when you say trend following is very very difficult you're thinking of results far better than a sharpe ratio of about 1?

A related - more ACD specific - question if you don't mind: How many trades / positions do you typically have open at the same time using this method? I guess it will vary a lot, but just a general number would be interesting. Do you focus on one / a few positions, i.e. just trading the cleanest/strongest signals? Or do you have many open positions on at the same time (as a typical diversified trend following system would have)?
 
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