Hi Bruce, welcome back!

Barbara Star wrote another article about mashing-up the ADX and MACD indicators into something she's now calling the "CAM indicator". Other folks call it an "ADX pinch" or "Squeeze".

Source: The CAM Indicator For Trends And Countertrends by Barbara Star, PhD, Stocks & Commodities V. 3601 (8-13).

The cool part is she included code this time (albiet from another charting package) for scanning for the four patterns (up, pullback, down, countertrend rally)...

What's the best/easiest way to set up the conditions and scan for this in v18? I know another TC2000 user who uses this as her primary setup, and she eyeballs charts a lot. Scanning automagically would help streamline her workflow.

Thanks!

My guess would be the following.

CAM-UP

ADX10.10 >= ADX10.10.1 AND MACD12.26 > MACD12.26.1

CAM-PB

ADX10.10 <= ADX10.10.1 AND MACD12.26 < MACD12.26.1

CAM-DN

ADX10.10 >= ADX10.10.1 AND MACD12.26 < MACD12.26.1

CAM-CT

ADX10.10 <= ADX10.10.1 AND MACD12.26 > MACD12.26.1

Cool. I'll give it a shot. 

While I was waiting, I sent you an email with the PDF article attached (via support@TC2000). It's a good (and short) read. Feel free to toss it if it's not your thing. :)

Just had a thought.

In the article, Barbara Star actually color codes (using four different colors) a bar chart with the four patterns, which got me thinking...

Using the same technique you used to implement Elder's Impulse color scheme, can you do the same for this? I use these four patterns a lot myself, though I prefer the PPO instead of the MACD since the PPO is based on percentages.

I know you're just back from vacation, so there's no rush, but ... when you have time, if you could whip up a workspace with the ADX, PPO, and a bar/faux candle chart with four unique colors, and TCMail it to me, that would be awesome.

Sweet. Thanks!!

Bruce, may I have a copy as well?

Thanks

I have sent you a TCMail with a chart containing my interpretation of the CAM Indicator implemented as a sort of OHLC Bar with a colored body like a candle.

Bruce, if I wanted to replace the MACD with the PPO, is it as simple as editing the PCFs and replacing all occurrences of "MACD" with "PPO"?

No, the exponential MACD 12, 26 is wirtten as follows in the chart.

MACD12.26

With the previous bar being:

MACD12.26.1

While the exponential PPO 12, 26 would be the following.

100 * (XAVGC12 / XAVGC26 - 1)

With the previous bar being:

100 * (XAVGC12.1 / XAVGC26.1 - 1)

You can probably get away with not changing the formulas and just replacing the MACD indicator on the chart with the PPO indicator however. If there are instances where the colors wouldn't match, it would be very rare (it may not even be possible, I haven't subjected the premise to any sort of rigorous proof).

Thanks!

I'll wait until I've had my first cup of coffee, then I'll duplicate the workspace you sent me and do a little code cutting & pasting ... my TC2000 colleague really prefers PPO so I want to do her a favor.

I really prefer PPO as well. I am not sure what the point of MACD might be as long as PPO exists. It seems better in every way to me personally. The article seems to use MACD however, and I generally try to match those things when I create something unless specifically requested otherwise.

Once again, great minds...

I'm not a history geek, but I think just as bar charts preceded candlesticks (at least in the West) I think Gerald Appel created the MACD first, then the PPO came along later. Don't quote me on it.

I run into lots of foks who swear by the MACD and never even heard of the PPO. Personally I believe ignorance is more expensive than education. Even though Dr. Elder is one of my main influences, I pretty much always replace his use of the MACD with a PPO. He's also old school in the use of bar charts, and readily admits he doesn't use candlesticks because he learned how to trade with bar charts. Ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess.

Got the coffee, got the barista's phone number ... time to cut & paste.

Bruce, got your TCMail. Thank you sir!! Looks great - much better than me cutting & pasting. Now I can spend more time with that barista. ;)

Have a great week. I've got Michael's trip to Chicago next month circled on my calendar. Can't wait!!

Bruce, this is AWESOME!

I'm still rereading Barbara Star's article. There are a few subtle tweaks she makes based on an EMA and/or a CCI, but before I ask you to make some improvements I'm going to look at several charts. Don't want to waste your time.

Stay tuned.

The more I think about it, the more I realize this is just another implementation of Elder's Impulse coloring scheme. Or something pretty close.

Elder uses only three colors, but if you're familiar with Elder's indicator "seasons" analogy (which he borrowed from someone else who's name escapes me) ... you can think of Green as "Summer", Blue following Green as "Fall", Red as "Winter", and Blue after Red as "Spring". The differentiator is whether the oscillator of choice is above or below its centerline.

Let me mull this over some more. The more indicators I play with, the more I realize it's all about price. :)

Personally, if you're trying to combine trend strength and direction (as Barbara Star's article is attempting to do) I would just use Linear Regression Slope and R-Squared. ADX and MACD/PPO work too, but I prefer Linear Regression. Just makes more sense (to me).

For now, I'm going to stick to Elder's Impulse. If I can come up with a reason to tinker with Star's "CAM" indicator, we'll revisit this.

After Michael comes to Chicago in mid-May, I might ask your help with some Linear Regression Slope & R-Squared PCFs. The idea is to use Elder's Impulse on two timeframes for scanning to find potential trades, and Linear Regression values to sort the list if the scan returns too many candidates to trade.

Thanks for all the help.

raynd,

Since Bruce is off enjoying the weekend sailing on his yacht. and I had a free minute, I took the liberty of sending you the CAM Indicator Bruce sent me.

You'll see two emails: one for the original MACD and another using the PPO.

Enjoy, and good luck!

Hi Bruce can you send me this as well on the CAM indicator.  Thanks so much!

Me too please.

Can I please get the indicator setup in tc mail?

Thank you.

Hello Bruce, I deleted the TC mail by mistake. Can you please send the mail one time?

Thank you

Priya

I have sent you a TCMail with a chart containing my interpretation of the CAM Indicator implemented as a sort of OHLC Bar with a colored body like a candle.

Thank you Bruce.

If I had a nickel for every time Bruce TCMailed a chart he developed based on one of my ideas ... lol. :)