MACD-V Explained: A Smarter Momentum Indicator for Trading Strategies

Most traders have lived this scene. You build a clean plan, open your platform, and get pulled into an indicator maze. RSI is flashing one thing, Stochastics another, MACD a third. You try to make sense of it and end up with what one guest on our ITI webinar called “Christmas tree charts.” If that sounds familiar, this one’s for you.

In our recent session with Alex Spiroglou, ITI faculty and award-winning professional trader, we dug into a practical fix: a volatility-normalized form of MACD, often called MACD-V. It is a simple adjustment with outsized effects.

The Real Problem Behind “Indicatoritis”

Most momentum trouble is not in the tool, but the mismatch between tool and regime. Bounded oscillators like RSI and Stochastics live on a fixed 0–100 scale. That’s perfect for range conditions because the scale is stable.

In strong trends, those tools peg and stay there, which tempts you to trade against a move that isn’t reverting. Unbounded indicators like classic MACD don’t peg, which is good for trends, but they drift with price level, so a “big” reading on crude oil in 2016 is not the same as a “big” reading in 2025.

This is the heart of the frustration. You switch markets or timeframes and your rules wobble. You change parameters and chase your tail.

The Simple Twist That Changes The Picture

MACD-V keeps the familiar MACD structure and scales it by volatility—specifically, Average True Range (ATR). That one change does two things traders care about:

• It gives you a stable yardstick across time and across assets. A reading has the same practical meaning whether you’re looking at Natural Gas or the DAX, this year or ten years ago.
• It keeps the series unbounded, so in a real trend it can keep expanding instead of pegging at an arbitrary ceiling.

Alex’s Spiroglou’s complete TradingView indicator suit

That stability lets you define thresholds that actually hold up. In practice, two levels matter most: a neutral band around ±50 and “extreme” zones around ±150. You don’t need to memorize numbers to get the point. The neutral band is where transitions tend to happen. The extreme zones mark readings that are rare enough to deserve respect.

Why does this matter for technical analysis and trading strategies? Because you can build rules around behavior that repeats, not around pictures that change every time the market does.

What Traders Get Wrong About Momentum (And How MACD-V Fixes It)

Traders often use momentum to do two different jobs at once: find trends and time entries. That usually ends in either late entries or whipsaws. MACD-V earns a spot on your screen because it separates those jobs cleanly.

First, it helps you call the regime without hand-waving. When the series sits inside ±50 for a while, you are in a range. Treat mid-range signals as noise. Save your directional bets for breakouts that push well beyond the neutral band. When the series pushes through +50 and stays above the signal line, you have a rallying state. That is the moment to stop counter-trading and start thinking continuation. The same logic applies on the downside.

Second, it gives you a common language for pullbacks. In an uptrend, a dip that keeps MACD-V above −50 and below the signal line is usually a retrace, not a top. That doesn’t mean “buy every dip.” It means you have a defined condition where pullback tactics make sense and a clear place to admit you’re wrong if the state changes.

Third, it reduces indicator stacking. When you can read regime, strength, and exhaustion from one normalized series, you don’t need a wall of sub-panes to feel “informed.” You can keep your chart simple and your thinking clear.

How It Plays With Your Current Process

If you run mean-reversion tactics in ranges and trend-following tactics in trends, MACD-V is glue. It tells you which set to reach for. It doesn’t replace your trend filter, your risk model, or your preference for certain patterns. It snaps those pieces into a repeatable order.

For example, many discretionary traders work top-down: monthly for macro backdrop, weekly for flows and context, daily for execution. Momentum belongs in that daily layer as the “how fast is this move?” gauge. Add MACD-V there and you get a common scale for all the symbols you watch. That helps you build a watchlist you trust and a playbook you can repeat.

It also helps with review. If you log the state at entry, the next one or two state changes, and the outcome, patterns show up fast. You’ll learn which transitions fit your temperament and which you should skip. That kind of feedback loop is what turns stock market trading strategies from ideas into tools.

A Plain-English Tour Of The States

You won’t need a chart to follow this. Think in terms of four everyday situations you already know, now defined in a way you can code and scan.

MACD-V & signal line

1) Range. MACD-V keeps printing between +50 and −50. Nothing stays inside forever, but while it does, trend trades are lower quality. Trade the range or stand aside. The value of writing it down is that you stop acting like you’re in a trend when you’re not.

2) Rebounding. You’ve had weakness. The series turns above its signal line, but readings are still below +50. Buyers are showing up, but they haven’t proven strength yet. This is the zone for “prove it” rules: higher highs with follow-through, or a push through +50 that sticks.

3) Rallying. Above the signal line and beyond +50. This is strength. Continuation tactics make sense. If you scale in, do it here and not earlier. Your stop logic should respect the state: a slip back below the signal line can be noise; a return all the way into the range band is a yellow flag; a full flip to downside strength is a change of story.

4) Risk levels. Readings beyond +150 (or below −150) are rare. They do not mean “short it now.” They mean “continuation is possible, but the fuel is getting used.” This is where you tighten your plan rather than invent a counter-trade.

If you only take one idea from this section, let it be this: use the state to choose a tactic, then use price to trigger the entry. That order reduces second-guessing.

What You’ll Learn Only By Watching The Webinar

You can read about normalized thresholds all day. The value comes when you see them on real markets, with all the mess left in. That is where Alex’s session earns your hour.

He shows how the same thresholds behave across quiet bonds and wild commodities. He shows strong trends that never would have let a bounded oscillator breathe, and how MACD-V keeps its scale so you can track persistence. He shows ranges that would normally bait you into premature trend trades and how a simple time-in-range rule filters the noise.

See Alex’s backtested probabilities and playbooks

You’ll also hear the “why” behind the numbers. The bands are not arbitrary. They come from looking at long runs of data across very different markets and seeing where readings cluster and where they almost never go. That’s the difference between a neat trick and a tool you can build around.

Finally, he walks through execution in plain language. No shortcuts, no magic settings. Just a repeatable way to slot momentum into a broader process.

Process You Can Steal Tomorrow

Alex frames execution with a simple scaffold that fits any discretionary style.

TIRE: Theory → Indicators → Rules → Ecosystem. Start with the idea (momentum is regime-dependent). Choose the indicator (MACD-V because it solves scale). Write the rules (states and thresholds). Then put those rules inside the real world your trades live in: timeframes, correlations, liquidity, macro backdrop, your own risk limits.

This isn’t theory for theory’s sake. It’s how you prevent a strong day from turning into an impulsive week. One page with those four lines filled in for your favorite instrument will do more for your P&L than five new indicators.

A Quick Word On Expectations

This is not a “settings reveal.” There is no secret line that buys bottoms and sells tops. The idea is stronger than that. It is a way to make momentum behave the same way in different places so your rules hold up. That consistency leads to better journaling, more honest review, and a steadier learning curve.

Alex’s S.M.A.R.T. Trader Systems Roadmap

If you trade discretionary, you don’t need a black box. You need a tool that tells you, in simple English, whether the market is ranging, rebounding, rallying, or running out of steam—and what that implies for the tactic you prefer. That is exactly what you’ll see.

Closing Argument

If you want one practical upgrade to your technical analysis and trading strategies this quarter, watch the webinar. It will not ask you to believe in a new system. It will give you a precise way to read momentum so you can choose tactics with less noise and more intent.