Wiliams WAD Indicator

JJJJ

I am looking at a trading strategy that uses the Williams WAD (Williams Accumulation/Distribution) indicator. I only find the Williams %R on the Stock Charts. Does Stock Charts have this indicator, or if not, a similar one that could be used as a replacement ?

markd

All the available indicators are in the Indicators drop down on the Chart Workbench. I don't see WAD there.

It looks like WAD is just a variation of OBV, but multiplies the volume by the size of the price change, accounting for gaps, before adding or subtracting it to a running total, instead of just adding or subtracting the actual volume as OBV does. Maybe this sometimes makes a difference in whether a divergence appears, but I would guess that whatever strategy you are investigating would work as well, or nearly as well (heck, maybe better!) as WAD. The principle is the same.

Although some people like Chaiken AD and/or MoneyFlow, I would be uncomfortable with the way it handles gaps - which is basically to ignore them, so that a stock closing down vs. the prior close but above the midpoint of the current bar gets its volume added to the total. You can get very different results vs. OBV, and I would guess likewise for WAD, so neither would be a good substitute.

You could look at Force Index, which is an Elder indicator. It uses an EMA instead of a running total, but it also works on the divergence principle, although it might not work as a substitute for WAD in the strategy you are researching. The Chart School article on Force is really good at explaining how it can be used.

frednaef

Hi JJJ and others.
You have found yet another great indicator in my opinion for short term trading.
Yes, Mark, I concur with some of your comments but it remains quite evident that the granular comparison of accumulation of pure price (WAD) cannot be compared to the combination of Volume x price accumulation that OBV displays.
Also the unique Definition of True Range High= Yesterday's close or Today's High which ever is great vs. True Range Low=Yesterday's Close or Today's Low versues whichever is Less is a pure price only 14 day accumulator then applied to a moving average, whether it is a minute, hour or day chart. It is a pure price following indicator that stockcharts.com does not have.
Barchart.com offers a much better realistic platform for the day trader. This indicator is available in their interactive chart.com. I highly recommend it.
It is far superior to anything that the legacy charts at stockcharts.com offer.
Unfortunately, Arthur Hill, and the boys are not keeping up with the forex and trading platform tools that more active daily scalpers are using.
there are a lot of instances of this type. I am too occupied to say more.
Never the less, stockcharts.com still offers the complete organized package for a good number of traders in my opinion/
I think that you could develop your own spread sheet WAD by using an excell sheet and downloading the daily results, but it is too challenging real time, unfortuntely for the day pattern trader!!
Best to luck

markd

I'm not sure what you mean by "accumulation of pure price".

Williams A/D multiplies volume by a fraction of the range, depending on the direction of the close. Force multiplies the volume by the change in closes. OBV effectively multiplies the volume by 1 or -1. So they are all related in that they multiply volume by price.

As to which site is better for day traders - I think it depends on the day trader. If your cognitive style fits the tools on one site or another, that's the better site for you. For me, Force identifies short term price reversals, as well as longer term accumulation and distribution (depending on parameters) exceptionally well, and its available in all time frames on Stockcharts. But, to each his own.

Maybe I'm not understanding you, but Stockcharts does offer Wilder's Average True Range indicator:

https://school.stockcharts.com/doku.php?id=technical_indicators:average_true_range_atr