acuTREND Glossary

Plain-language definitions of every term on the acuTREND charts and site. Each entry says how to read it, not how it is calculated.

The Framework

acuTREND: the umbrella name for the framework and its three components: acuTRADE, acuPHASE and acuPRESSURE.

LODD (Long-Only, Drawdown Discipline): what acuTREND is. It only buys, never sells short, and is built to keep drawdowns to a fraction of buy and holds.

CPR: Capture. Protect. Repeat. Capture the major trends, protect capital when they break, and repeat the process trend after trend.

acuTRADE: the component that gives the signals. It manages each position from the Buy, through any AT/Bs and SPs, to the Exit. It is built on daily charts for equities from $5 billion in market capitalization to the largest companies in the world, and for large-AUM ETFs.

acuPHASE: guidance to trend change. It shows where a security sits in its trend: green when the trend is positive and an advance is favored, red when the trend is weakening, an Exit warning.

acuPRESSURE: the direction and changing strength of pressure: green when buying pressure is building, red when sellers are in control, blue for participation expansion.

The order matters: pressure changes before the trend does. Often acuPRESSURE moves first, acuPHASE confirms, then acuTRADE acts.

Signals on the Chart

Buy (green tag): opens a new position as an uptrend is confirmed. The tag shows the price and date. The Buy price is the reference for every result on the scorecard.

AT/B, Add To / Buy (yellow tag): a point to add to an existing position, or to start one if you missed the Buy, while the uptrend continues. The tag shows the price. AT/Bs are shown for information and are not counted in the results.

SP 1 and SP 2, Scale Partial (orange arrow): partial profit-taking as the trend matures. SP 1 sells 20% of the original position and SP 2 another 20%, so 40% is banked and 60% stays invested until the Exit. The tag shows the price and the gain from the Buy. If the trend ends before SP 1, the whole position rides to the Exit.

Exit (red tag): closes whatever is still held when the trend ends. “Exit 60%” means both SPs were taken first, “Exit 80%” means only SP 1 was, and “Exit 100%” means none were. The tag shows the price, the gain or loss from the Buy, and the date.

Next day’s open: every signal appears at the end of a day and is acted on at the next day’s opening price. All prices on the tags are those opening prices.

The Legend on Each Chart

Every chart carries a short legend at the right of the acuPHASE and acuPRESSURE panes. Here is what each line means.

On the chart	What it means
acuPHASE – Guidance to TREND Change	acuPHASE shows whether the trend is holding or starting to change.
Green: TREND – Positive – Advance Favored	The trend is up and healthy. Odds favor further gains.
Red: TREND Weakening – Exit Warning	The trend is losing strength. An Exit may be approaching, so watch acuTRADE. Red alone is not an Exit.
TRENDweight: Underlying TREND Strength (100 to −100)	How strong the trend is below the price. +100 is the strongest uptrend, −100 the strongest downtrend.
TRENDindex: Price Movement Ranking (0 to 20)	How much the price is moving now, ranked against the security’s own past year. 20 is its most active, 0 its quietest.
acuPRESSURE – Direction and Changing Strength of Pressure	Which side is pushing, buyers or sellers, and whether that push is growing or fading.
Green: Buying Pressure Building	Buyers are in control. Taller green bars mean more buying pressure.
Red: Sellers in Control	Sellers are in control. Deeper red bars mean more selling pressure.
Blue: Participation Expansion	A day when volume jumps well above normal: many more participants stepping in.

acuPHASE

How to read it: green bars mean the trend is positive and an advance is favored. Red bars mean the trend is weakening, an Exit warning. The status line reads left to right: where the trend stands (the phase), its underlying strength (TRENDweight), and how its price movement ranks (TRENDindex).

Phase: where the security sits in its cycle. The number after the phase name is how many days it has been in that phase; “Bearish 22” means 22 days in Bearish. The phases run as a cycle:

Phase	What it means	TRENDweight
Bullish	Uptrend in full force	+70 to +100
Warning	Uptrend losing strength	−10 to −30
Distribution	Sellers taking over from buyers	−40 to −60
Bearish	Downtrend in full force	−70 to −100
Recovery	Downtrend losing strength	+10 to +30
Accumulation	Buyers taking over from sellers	+40 to +60
Neutral	No clear trend	0

TRENDweight: the underlying strength of the trend, from 100 (strongest uptrend) to −100 (strongest downtrend). It can start to slip before the phase changes, an early sign that the trend is tiring.

TRENDindex: a ranking of price movement, from 0 to 20, compared with the security’s own past year. A high reading means it is moving fast for this security; a low reading means it is quiet. It has no minus sign: TRENDweight already shows the direction.

acuPRESSURE

How to read it: acuPRESSURE shows the direction and changing strength of pressure. Green bars mean buying pressure building; red bars mean sellers are in control. Blue marks participation expansion, a day when volume jumps well above normal.

The four zones: acuPRESSURE has two sides above zero and two below. Which zone it is in, and which way it is moving, is what to read.

Zone	What it looks like	What it means
Green, rising	Bars grow up out of zero, often right after red	A new advance taking hold
Green, falling	Green bars shrink but stay above zero	A pullback within an uptrend; profit-taking
Red, falling	Red bars grow deeper	Selling pressure building
Red, rising	Red bars shrink back toward zero	Selling easing; a bottom may be forming

Turning points: near a top, green often fades toward zero before the turn down. Near the bottom, red often fades toward zero before the turn up. Both can happen while the price still looks fine or still looks terrible.

Expanding / Contracting: the status line shows whether pressure is growing (Expanding ↑) or shrinking (Contracting ↓) on the latest day.

Reading the Scorecard

The label at the right of each chart compares the security traded with acuTRADE against simply buying and holding it.

OPEN TRADE: acuTRADE holds the security now. The text is green while the price is above the Buy and red while it is below. “(as of date)” appears when the chart ends on a past date.

• Buy / Date: the price and date of the current Buy.
• Price gain since Buy: the change from the Buy price to the latest close.
• Price gain n SPs sold: the whole position’s result, counting the profits already banked at SP 1 and SP 2.
• Holding: how much of the original position is still held: 100%, 80% after SP 1, or 60% after SP 2.
• High since Buy: the highest price reached since the Buy, and its date.

Out: acuTRADE holds nothing in the security now and is waiting for the next Buy. “Watching for re-entry” means conditions for a new Buy are being tracked; “Re-entry level” is the price at which a new Buy would come.

The year blocks (1, 3 and 10 years, or as shown): whole calendar years ending last December, or the December before the chart’s end date. Each block shows:

• Return: with acuTRADE, and with buy and hold, over the same years.
• Max DD (maximum drawdown): for acuTRADE, the deepest drop below the Buy price; for buy and hold, the deepest drop from a high to a low. Each is dated by month.
• Closed trades: trades completed in the period, plus any still open.
• AT/B signals, not trades: how many AT/Bs appeared. They are not counted in the results.
• In the market: the share of time acuTRADE held the security. The rest is time spent standing aside.
• Best trade / Weakest trade: the whole result of the best and weakest trades, partial profits included, with their Buy and Exit months (“open” if still held). Weakest trade appears when there are two or more trades.

Decision

All readings, scores and markers describe market conditions. Whether and how to act on them rests entirely with the individual trader or institution. This glossary is provided for educational purposes and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.