What happened was that after writting the book the author realized that he gave out all his research and practical experience . After all the inevitable editing was done, what was left was published. I believe that author was selling the breakout values of different markets in the past as a separate service.
It's a shame that there are very little discussions on Tradestation Forum on ACD Methodolgy. Most of the threads on Tradestation Forum is basically someone asking for the EZ Language code on Opening Range Breakout. It would be nice if they have more ppl willing to discuss the more advance topics on ACD Methodolgy.
I am starting to record the ACD behavior in my trading logs. If I see a significant pattern developing between wins or losses and a certain ACD set-up I'll try to integrate it further. At the moment, however, I have a profitable system with a positive expectancy; so why fix something that's not broken! Out of interest, do you have any statistical data on ACD set-ups when trading crude - i.e. what % an A up or down or C up or down etc work and what is the average win - loss on each set-up?
I used my own opening range breakout system in the Bond pit. Years before I'd heard of ACD or Fisher. The premise is simple. On the opening bell the market has a range of x. By the end of the day the range will be 20x. The goal is to "discover" which direction the range will expand. In my own particular case the initial results were outstanding. At one point my account went from 2k to over a million in several months. Of course I was using jackass position sizing which caused it's own problems. It's always a bit easier in terms of both liquidity and emotion to flip 5 lots back and forth than 300 lots. The biggest degradation in performance though was caused by the increased importance of price discovery derived by overseas markets. Back "in the day" before Asia and Europe were trading our markets 24/7 electronically, the U.S. open was of paramount importance. Naturally there were easier to identify order imbalances back then. These days by the time RTH trading commences the market has a better idea of fair value. Much more chop than breakout. Plus on the screen one needs to be lightning quick in mindlessly flipping from long to short to long. Commissions, slippage and human frailty are all negative inputs. Just the same being cognizant of the opening range is one of a zillion things one needs to consider each session. Fading clean O/R breakouts is a low percentage play.....
Even flawed systems have money-making components. Fisher's book presents principles, not really a system. An able trader who uses ORB principles with discretion would do better over the long haul than would a ORB "black box".
More info here: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/technical/04/032404.asp Book: http://www.amazon.com/Logical-Trader-Mark-B-Fisher/dp/0471215511
After reading the book, It seemd ACD could be a good frame woork. But the book does not specifies even the logic or concept behind A values and C values as to what is the rational behind these numbers. CAN ANY ONE ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE THIS ???? Can any one mention the logic as to how these values are detrmined ? The book also provides hundreds of pages of data at the end without even mentioning as to what is the the relevance of each item in line item of mountain of Data.
This book is a gem... It's not a system. You gotta know how to trade to use this. But, if you understand completely, it's how big money is made. Definitely not for novices. Must have your own system and use ACD as a guidance.
As u study ACd, never forget that the main practitioners of ACD were floor traders who pay very very little in commission when they flip back and forth from A up to A down ,etc. Furthermore, the post of Pabst regading the evolution of RTH to 24/7 has a pretty material dilutive effect of this as well as other opening range b/out systems.