Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Hi, in his boot, The Logical Trader, Mark Fisher states that plus or minus days (I'm assuming you know what these are as a baseline for the question) repeat themselves on a rolling 30 day basis. In other words, if 30 days ago we had a minus day and today opens over the pivot range, there is a higher than average chance we'll have a minus day today. He explains this in the part where he talks about 3 day pivots. But I don't see him specifically talking about this in the context of 3 day pivots. Is he talking about daily pivots or 3 day pivots? Methinks daily pivots. Let me know your thoughts.
More importantly, when he says that plus and minus days frequently repeat 30 day later, does he mean calendar days or trading days? If calendar days, how does he deal with weekends and holidays? I haven't finished the book yet, or read through all the comments on here yet. Thought I'd put it out there in case anyone knows.
I have been a student of ACD for a while. Still use it but not at all like his book or videos suggest. A long time ago, I backtested most of the ideas in his book/videos. I dont remember if I tested plus/minus days specifically because as far as I remember, it wasnt meant to be used standalone as a rule. And from what I remember, it was meant in the context of daily pivots, not 3-day. The way I understood the non-core ACD ideas (other than A/C up/down) it was that these ideas - 3 day pivot, number line +9/-9, plus/minus days, previous day A/C levels etc. were to be used as guides to strengthen a traders conviction if trading non-systematically or to raise/lower the bias probabilities if trading systematically.
I am pretty sure he meant trading days and not calendar days for the 30 day period.
If you are going down this path to develop a systematic trading system, I can save you a lot of pain. Some of MF's ideas are a great way to give structure to your data but make sure your backtesting method is capable of reducing over-fitting. ACD and many such systems that are purely based on time-based historical patterns are very susceptible to over-fitting.
Thank you, Hulk. Yes, for plus/ minus it is for daily pivots. It so happens it's articulated in the section where he deals with 3-day pivots, that's what I mean (i.e., was pointing out that while he meant daily he put it in the context of the 3-day pivots explanation). Good to know that you err on the side of 30 trading, not calendar days. Using calendar days makes it problematic. Personally found it hard to believe that things would happen like clockwork on a rotating 30-day basis, I am mainly curious to keep checking to see if any patterns emerge, more so than hanging my hat on it. However, his basic A,C,D system around the opening range and ATR extensions, on the whole, works very well and keeps me on the right side of things. I also don't do it exactly as stated in the book, or not completely standalone. I look at a number of things. Probably the area where I depart the most is with regard to his stop loss criteria. I tend to lean against other things and give it less room.
I do work with Bloodhound and at this point consider myself more of a systematic than a discretionary trader, but this part of it is actually still in the discretionary bucket. I do it as one of two discretionary setups I allow myself, and in a very limited way, from A to the next fib pivot at the most, or just an ATR multiplier profit target. It's not so much a standalone trade as a way for me to balance the automated model's bias-variance tradeoff shortcomings if that makes sense. I was actually thinking that at some point I'd elaborate an automated strategy around the A,C,D trade, but I'm not there yet. Thanks for the tip on overfitting. That can definitely be a concern.