Customer Reviews

Candlestick Charting Explained: Timeless Techniques for Trading Stocks and Futures

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I would more accurately give this book 3 1/2 stars ...I am a firm believer in Candlestick charting - not because it is foolproof, and not for some mystical ancient timeless qualities it possesses in predicting stocks.

The simple fact is, it is much easier to recognise patterns by looking at a "candle" rather than looking at the western plot (which I find visually confusing, especially if the graphs are cramped). Using candlesticks has its flaws but overall I think it is a good way to view price data.

The book: a bit light, however substantially more depth than anything I have found for free on the web, and I have found a lot. The book takes a pattern, shows you what is likely to happen next, explains deviations from normal and also tells you to what degree confirmation recommended. It is easy to use as reference.

It gave me enough information to create my own computerised candlestick recognition software .. the book also contains statistics from their own software, e.g the percentage of times they found "hammers" or "doji" patterns - this was interesting.

I chose this book over the work by Nison because it was 1. cheaper and 2. it was recommended on an investor site as being better organised than Nisons' work ... and it is very well organised. Also nobody really grilled it in a review.

However, I still plan to purchase the books by Nison to expand my understanding ... that does not mean this is a bad book, I just want more information. I would want an entire book just on the fascinating history of the ancient inventor of candlesticks, Sakata, what a character. I would not mind reading a translation of his work. Also I would like more insights into the psychological interpretations.

I recommend taking a look at this book and at Nisons', and deciding then. It is quite a good book. But don't expect any one book to give you everything you need to become a successful trader, that will take perspective, experience and a watchful eye.

A great question is which is better: Nison or Morris? Nison is for those who use indicators; Morris is the purist using only volume.
Reference book? Morris gives you the picture and the explanation in an easy format and an index to find it. He also breaks the candles into groups and types. This is the valuable part of the book.
Who is more in depth? Well that's a tie with Morris winning slightly on candles & losing if you want to view the whole Japanese charting world, Kagi, Renko, 3 line break. Nison gives other Japanese charting types weight in the book which is good if you have Metastock bad if you don't. Personally I like the other methods.
So why did I give Morris the nod? As a professional trader I can't really give away an edge except that Morris is more tuned towards stocks & gives hints that Nison did not.
Nison is also a boring writer, better lecturer. Morris is a better writer, teacher.
Remember Morris gives you everything and if that's not enough then you're not reading carefully; looking over these previous reviews makes me happy because they obviously missed Morris' hints and guides. I saw them and my trading improved & I had used Candles for a long time before getting to Morris ala Nison & began to think them worthless. Now I understand their role.

Enough said.

As a professional money manager and author, I found this book a must have for the entire spectrum of investors.

Greg Morris is the Morris in murphymorris.com, the vehicle for technical analysis guru and frequent CNBC guest John Murphy, whose ongoing analysis and excellent history of prescient market calls places him in the Hall of Fame.

Candlestick charts are standard in most charting programs and have become the hallmark of day traders. But this is an ancient art from the Far East, which Greg was among the first to champion, and popularize. Greg studied the art in person while in Japan and learned not just the technique, but the cultural and more deeply rooted use of this useful form of analysis. It is this in depth knowledge, combined with Greg's conversational and easy to read style which makes this book a classic.

Greg is a trader, and makes this clear throughtout the book, sticking to the business at hand, and not reminiscing about his own personal glory, or useless anecdotes. The book is immediately useful and made a great difference in my own ability to analyze stocks and make trading decisions.

Especially useful and extremely important are the sections which deal with candlestick patterns which alert the trader as to potential upcoming changes in the trend. These have saved me many times, and have allowed me to both buy and sell correctly when other popular methods have not.

Just that is worth the price of the book.

I rated Greg Morris' book over Nison's because: 1. It's cheaper and better organized. 2. It can be treated as textbook and reference book. 3. It's suitable for professionals as well as novices. However, Nison's two books are still very good.

Some readers imply that Greg Morris' book has not much new ideas than Nison's. I don't agree with that. Both Nison and Morris have learned Candlestick techniques from Japanese, and they all translated those Candlestick analysis from Japanese books. Since Nison published his book first in the Western world, people have the impression that Nison "invented" Candlestick techniques, and obvious Candlestick analysis is an ancient Art and Science.

Finally, I sincerely recognize Nison's contributions in the technical field. I would like to recommend all three books (written by both Morris and Nison) as "Strong Buy".

If you are looking for a book that defines candlestick formations then this book is for you.

If, however, you are a little like me and want that little bit extra than simple definitions, then unfortunately you are going to be disappointed.

The only worthwhile part in this book was the 27 pages comprising of chapter 8 - where Gregory Morris combines candlestick formations with sentiment-based indicators.

If 90% of the book was devoted to this (the relationship between sentiment-based indicators and candlestick formations) and the other 10% was on the MOST COMMON candlestick formations (rather than candlestick formations that probably only happen once on a blue moon) it would have been a very good book.

If you are looking for a good candlestick book I highly recommend "The Secret of Candlestick Charting" by Louise Bedford.

Good book for someone who doesn't know anything about candlesticks, but I think you need to have some sort of understanding of investing before reading this book. The reason why I gave it a 4 star instead of a 5 star was because this is the first book on candlestick I've read. I haven't read another book yet on this topic.

Read this book the first time when I bought it several months ago and got a glazed over look in my eyes because I had no clue about any of it. However, as I let some months pass by and got better with my technical analysis utilizing other charts like MACD, stochastics, MA, BOP, TSV, MS, etc....the terminology and how the market moves allowed me to better understand what I was reading in Morris' book.

It would've been nice if he had a simplified table of the various individual candlesticks and what they represented and another table of the reversal patterns in bull & bear markets.

I like how the chapters were formatted in the reversal chapter. This was a long chapter and probably could've been broken down into shorter chapters to better categorize various reversals.

I have been able to validate some of the reversals by experience. I wasn't sure if I was reading the candlesticks correctly and went against what I read. The candlesticks were correct and I was wrong. Good thing I am learning about this when I don't have lots of money to lose yet.

All in all, I will read this book to glean even more information from it. I've already read it twice.

This is a good book to keep in the laptop case for quick ref.

The real books are by Steve Nison. But Morris book is more organized a good value nonetheless

This book is an excellent reference for all the candlestick patterns. I like the fact that it has a pattern breakdown for every formation and also data on how well the patterns perform as far as accuracy at the end of the book. The descriptions are clear,concise and very well organized with great illustrations and psychological explanations behind the candlestick moves. I found this book an easier more understandable read than nison`s books on candlesticks and for less than half the price. I keep this book close by whenever i need to review a certain pattern, its very easy to flip through and find any of the formations since they are all neatly grouped by category, which i like. I think its the best.

I thought it was a very good book, however it could have gone a little bit into more details. Its one notch below Steve Nison's work, but its easy to understand and great for novice traders new to learning the methods of Japanese Candlesticks. Well worth the price of the book!

I have read some negative comments here about this book not being detailed enough etc... but it gives very clear, understandable explanations of all the patterns, and they are all grouped in an excellent orderly easy to find fashion. Other books of this kind may be a bit more detailed but they are a difficult dry read, far too lenthy and not as organized nor as well written. Greg morris delivers all the neccessary goods in this book.