Do professional traders use MACD?

Professional traders do use MACD, particularly to confirm trends and gauge momentum strength in clearly directional markets.

Momentum is one of the most important concepts professional traders use to generate strategies; as momentum accelerates, the price of an asset can break out or break down, and one of the best and most complete momentum indicators is MACD.

Most pros treat it as a contextual filter rather than a primary trigger, often customizing settings or combining it with price action. Many professional traders find the default settings (12, 26 and 9) to be too slow, causing late entry and exit to and from a trade.