Gabfly, you remind me of someone who walks by and hears two people talking and listens to a few words and jumps in without having any context of what was said before you got there. By your own admission you have barely read the thread. Because if you have, you would understand that by "call", no one is really referring to a specific call as in a trade, but rather identifying a specific environment. That is talked about a thousand times which apparently you were absent. You can't just show up and read a few posts and come down here on a completely unrelated topic and try to lampoon me. Well I guess you can do what you want, more a question about character really. Anyway, if you want to discuss this more, I invite you on the ACD thread where your posts will be on topic. Instead of discussing that here. And unlike you gabfly, I treat all posters on the ACD thread with respect so it's not an issue of home field advantage. I will not discuss the issue further here as it's off topic. Forum etiquette and all.
Really? Context being everything, could you kindly show me where this is pointed out? Thank you, but I think I'll pass. I find the ACD to just be an S&R overlay. I've read what I personally found to be better material on S&R, so I will leave you to it.
Here you go. I stated this several times over the years but I think this is pretty clear. The ACD Method The quote: "Yeah I've tried to keep the "making calls" out of this thread and that is certainly not what I would want on other threads discussing ACD. If any one of you are wondering why I have objections to making calls it's simply because I don't think it's a value add. I think discussing process is much more important. Nobody learns anything by saying I think this is the top. Or I short the ES here and covered 2 handles lower. It takes the focus away from the process and moves it to the mouse clicking part. When I do put trades out on here I'm doing it to draw people's attention to something specifically that is happening in the market. They usually are of a longer term nature. Not the "if you blinked, you missed it" variety. I also like to point out markets that I feel no one on ET is talking about. When I mentioned the number line confirm on GBP/AUD it was not to call out a trade, but to show people what they are not looking at when they are transfixed on only the Euro or the ES or oil or AAPL, etc. There is a whole world of markets out there and ACD helps one find opportunities where no one else is looking. Try typing in GBP/AUD in the ET search box and tell me how many hits you get. Just a few brief mentions. Well, it's the biggest mover out there right now in FX land."
The ACD Method "Thanks. I'm really trying to put a focus more on the process rather then the "trade calling". Everyone on ET "calls out" trades it seems and I find little value in that. The value is in the process. One needs to know "why" they are making the trade. And "why" the trade is working or "why" it's not working. Too many people on ET get caught up in the simple binary result without ever understanding the process that generated that binary result." "Any fool can know. The point is to understand." Albert Einstein From April 2014. The previous one was from 2013. I think I have said this at least once a year for the last 5 or 6 years.
Thank you for that. Not to beat a dead horse, but I still don't see where "call" in the ACD thread means something other than "call" as we generally understand the term in the rest of ET. Of course, you are free to do as you please in that thread or any other, but I just remember reading a congratulatory post from one of your followers for making a great call and I couldn't find any such thing in the vicinity. However, you just accepted the compliment without qualification; that is what caught my attention. Perhaps there is an index of terms unique to the ACD thread I am not aware of because I do not visit your thread with any regularity. Personally, I find color commentary of what has happened and possible future scenarios with a list of provisos and no meaningful specificity to be little more than banter. And that's okay. But it is what it is. I hope that the actual trades that you identified worked out well for you.
I agree. But where are those trades that we need to better understand? See my point? The underlying rationale would be that much better appreciated if complemented with actual trades for perspective and context. And the only reason I brought the whole matter up is because of my apparent misunderstanding of "calls" as referred to in your thread. My bad.
Yes, we use the term call differently. We "call" out stuff as a way of identifying what is happening in the market. You can kind of think of it more as a macro expose. For example, I "called" out the price action recently in the metals especially Copper as they were firming up while the market was in freefall. It was not a "call" to buy copper but rather extracting information from the macro landscape. We discuss EVERYTHING on the thread. Every product, every time frame and every way of analyzing the data. It's a take what you want approach. We put ideas and data out there, and traders stop by, grab a few things and carry on. There is no ego, no king of the world, no I'm better then you. Calling trades out is pointless because you can't statistically control for the trades they don't call out. So the data is pure white noise. The thread typically attracts the more serious and analytical type. The person looking for sweet candy with trade calls will bore quickly after reading a few pages and leave which is why the trolls have never been able to sink their teeth into the thread. People actually learn things on that thread. I have formed many professional relationships from people on that thread and have engaged in extensive quid pro quo data analysis with several posters offline. I suspect the thread is not appealing to most ETers because we tend to be a roll your sleeves up and put in long hours kind of bunch. Boring stuff really. Much more fun and drama on other threads.
I agree that trade calls without an underlying rationale are just a form of entertainment. However, I think the same can be said for general commentary without accountable specificity. But then, I only come here for entertainment so I really shouldn't complain. I think depth and breadth of analysis is great if that's what you want, although I personally favor simplicity. (Simple minds and all that.) At the end of the day, I think you'll agree that the ACD method is a trading method, either as a bare-boned stand-alone, or as an overlay or filter to a trader's existing approach. That said, my understanding is that it is more of a trading tool than one of in-depth analysis, which evidently your thread has become. Perhaps the thread title is somewhat of a misnomer and that is why I was led astray with my earlier commentary.
I think you are being quite gracious in your final comment. Yes, Mav appropriated the thread. You have read the book, well it is akin to learning ABCs when you start school. What has happened in the thread has been a great sharing of ideas, developed and then shared further. I used to tell people they needed to study and make notes for about 600 pages of the thread, but since the site redesign, about 450 will suffice now. It isn't about S&R, it isn't an overlay, it's about developing a directional bias, seeing inside what is happening in the market. We don't talk entries and exits because we are a pretty selfish, call it self-reliant, bunch. We don't want to be entering with the bus crowd, nor exit with them, so where I enter is my business. I take great pains to make sure my stop is not where you'd expect it to be, so I'm not about to post it here. ACD the way we do it is a lot of work. I'll be honest with you, I wish I could day trade like the guys who do the video game thing. I can't. I need to have a quantitative aspect to my decisions, and I get it from ACD. So, I'm stuck with the hard work. There are many ways to skin a cat, and many ways to trade. To each his own.