The ACD Method

Quote from Maverick74:

I think ultimately stress comes from uncertainty. Not from uncertainty in the market, but rather uncertainty in your decision making. If I know EXACTLY what I'm going to do and WHEN I'm going to do it, I don't have any stress. Because your actions are planned out. In the past, if I shot from the hip and asked questions later, I would feel stress from not knowing what my course of action was going to be. Psychologists have studied this extensively. For example, people are prone to have more stress awaiting an important medical test result because they "don't know" what it is. Once they find out it's cancer, surprisingly despite the bad prognosis, people often are relieved and deal with it. It's the "not knowing" that causes the stress.

What you need to do is make sure your decision making process is FIRM. Again, this is how I use ACD. I know EXACTLY how I enter trades and why I am entering them. And I know EXACTLY when and where I'm getting out. There is no stress because it's routine. It's only when you deviate from that routine do you find stress.

Don't think of your trade in terms of p&l. Think of it in terms of a process. If it's process oriented then you are NOT giving back p&l, you are executing a process. The trade has an entry and an exit. Upon exit, you have a result. That result is one of many results you will have. The sum total of your results will equate to how effective your process is and how efficient you are at executing it. It's really that simple. And if it's NOT that simple, you need to MAKE it that simple.

Focus on the finish line, you never get there.. Lose yourself in the process, the finish line approaches before you know it.. Finish line being successful trading.. Nothing good comes easy.. I like FX for one reason.. You can trade very small, and gain confidence.. This you can not do in futures..
 
Mav,

Speaking from experience, does NFP/FOMC or major news event make you hesitant to initiate a new position even when ACD is confirming?
 
Quote from koolaid:

Mav,

Speaking from experience, does NFP/FOMC or major news event make you hesitant to initiate a new position even when ACD is confirming?

I would not initiate a new position EXACTLY ahead of a binary event. More often then not, ACD triggers signals several days before hand so you often get a nice cushion going into large volatility events. What I do like to do is if I did get a signal ahead of such an event and that event creates a counter move to the signal, I use that move to enter on the fade.
 
Quote from Maverick74:

I would not initiate a new position EXACTLY ahead of a binary event. More often then not, ACD triggers signals several days before hand so you often get a nice cushion going into large volatility events. What I do like to do is if I did get a signal ahead of such an event and that event creates a counter move to the signal, I use that move to enter on the fade. [/QUOTE

Like the current down/counter move in Es ahead of the numbers?.. Fade and go long
 
Quote from cdcaveman:

Quote from Maverick74:

I would not initiate a new position EXACTLY ahead of a binary event. More often then not, ACD triggers signals several days before hand so you often get a nice cushion going into large volatility events. What I do like to do is if I did get a signal ahead of such an event and that event creates a counter move to the signal, I use that move to enter on the fade. [/QUOTE

Like the current down/counter move in Es ahead of the numbers?.. Fade and go long

Nah I think Mav meant that if ACD confirmed long and the event spikes it down..then you go long and fade the event reaction.
 
Quote from koolaid:

Nah I think Mav meant that if ACD confirmed long and the event spikes it down..then you go long and fade the event reaction.

Sorry for the late response. Yes, koolaid is correct. Remember, price does not invalidate trades, time does. So sharp movements in price against a signal do not invalidate them. So if you get a buy signal and a spike down after, especially on some random news event, that's usually a gift you should accept.
 
Mav,

I was going over the thread....do you still reset the number line with each new month? or do you only reset when it crosses 0?
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Personally, to me, the whole idea behind trading is selecting the right product at the right time with the right size. This is why I "avoid" chop and noise and focus on things that are meaningful. Some people just want to trade oil or nat gas or the ES or TSLA. I never understood that. One has to endure the absolute worst of conditions to get to the best conditions. I rather focus my time and effort where there is the least amount of traffic and get in on "rare" moves. This is what ACD does for me.

Great Post!

If you are able to follow that logic, and cut your losers and let the winners run...that's the holy grail of trading
 
Quote from koolaid:

Mav,

I was going over the thread....do you still reset the number line with each new month? or do you only reset when it crosses 0?

Monthly number lines always get re-set at the beginning of the month.
 
Back
Top