The standard MACD is (12, 26, 9). Apart from that standardsetting, one can use other settings. Most trading platformsallow technical traders to change the standard MACD settings.In many cases MACD traders are tuning their settings just to avoid common lagging issues. The challenge is to find the best MACD setting that fits to the trading task at hand.
Though, the standard MACD works just fine, the quest for that best MACD indicator setting never fades away.What To Consider When Setting MACDOne must understand that MACD is a momentum technicalindicator that is only useful during trending phases. Therefore,MACD works best when the price is in a rising or decliningchannel. A MACD trader who does not know that may spent his or her life looking for the best MACD settings after another best MACD setting. In that instance, one will be blaming MACD settings instead of oneself.The next things one must take into consideration when adjustingMACD settings are the different types of market trends. There are short, medium and long term trends that are interlinked. The short term trends form the mediums and medium ones create the long term trends.
Elliott wave traders understand that better than other technical
traders, and they use terms such as higher degree and lower
degree wave count.
Those who grasp that will agree that the standard MACD works
just fine. So an Elliott wave trader can use MACD at the start of an impulse price-action, and stay away from MACD during the corrective phases instead of changing MACD settings during those corrective waves.
The Thing To Consider Before Twisting MACD SettingsOne is not trading MACD but the price-action. One should neverforget that. Truly, one that forgets that is like a blind rugby player that is running around aimlessly. I have seen it when traders spenthours criticizing MACD. Well, they were trading MACD instead of using it in conjunction with the price-action. Consequently, after changing MACD settings hundred times, they give up. Then they pledge never to use it again. Moreover, the price trends more often than itconsolidates therefore one must learn to master trending technical indicators such as MACD and moving averages instead of the oscillators. My Best MACD SettingsAs I said before the standard MACD settings (12, 26, 9) of Gerald Appel does work. There is nothing wrong with it except if one is misusing it during a consolidation or trading it without confirming its signals with the price-action. Remember that the aim of the best MACD settings is to pinpoint the best momentum price-action. The keyword is momentum. With that in mind, one will be able find the best MACD settings. Note that not every momentum trader will agree with my best MACD settings. However, that is not the most important thing because the bottom line is always how money one has made with that best MACD setting. In fact, other momentum traders may prefer different MACD settings. To cut a long story short, my best MACD setting is MACD (8, 24, 9). I will be writing an article about why MACD 8 is my best MACD setting. I say MACD 8 because one can either use 24 or 32 for the zero line. MACD 8 follows the price more closely than the standard MACD 12. There is a simple market principle that governs MACD 8. This is it. Take it from me, a technical trader who has mastered MACD trading, I mean flawlessly will salute the performance of my best settings (8, 24, 9) or (8, 32, 9). By the way feel to call me Mr MACD. I will not mind one bit. So there you have it. The best MACD settings (8, 24, 9). Call it George's MACD. ConclusionThe MACD (8, 24, 9) is a high performing MACD, but to get paid as a MACD momentum trader, one must learn to trade MACD flawlessly like a pro. A person can have the best designing tools, but those tools will never make one a competent designer. The same is true about the best MACD settings. Nevertheless, those that are MACD momentum traderswho are looking for the best MACD settings will agree that MACD (8, 24,9) is truly a high performing MACD.Well, this is the end of this article about MACD settings. I hope you have found it useful. Really, I enjoy writing it. Please feel free to share it on the social media. It will not be too long before I post another article about why MACD 8 is the best MACD setting. Stay tuned. Thank you for visiting stochastic-MACD.com today.
This article is written by George Beaulieu.