Customer Reviews

Getting Started in Chart Patterns

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been trading the markets since 1998 and as an engineer by trade, am a very visual thinker. In my first years of trading, I read and reread Martin Pring's "Technical Analysis Explained" and Dr. Elder's book "Trading for a Living". Both are excellent and caused me to fall in love with TA.

I bought Bulkowski's book both as a refresher course and out of curiosity for the statistics he provides. It did not disappoint. His extensive research is more than obvious and his writing style hit the mark. It is clear and carries the voice of experience.

According to an independent biography I found on Global Investor, Thomas Bulkowski did in fat quit his day job at age 36 by earning enough from his investments. That says a lot right there. Although the main theme of the book is to present chart patterns with their historical success and failure rates, it offers much more.

For instance, Mr. Bulkowski bares his soul on many occaisions by revealing actual losing trades he's made. These detailed discussions of his thought process in entering and exiting the trade brought back many memories for me; ones I'd like to, but shouldn't, forget. New traders will find these accounts interesting and should pay heed to them. Making money in the markets is not nearly as easy as other books will have you believe. You need to put in the time in research and, if you are a technical trader like me, look at thousands of charts over the course of years.

To punctuate this point, Mr. Bulkowski provides a great chapter called "The Art of Trading - Checklists". In it he throws down his list of "to do" items for preparing and maintaing his trades. Even if you don't follow his routine (you should have your own), you will get a feel for the kind of effort and commitment required to do this business.

As a literary device, the book uses an imaginary trader named Jake. He provides conversation with Bulkowski throughout the book and is definitely the voice of the new trader. The "teacher/student" dialog works well and is very often humorous. Imagine what a challenge it is to write a book on technical analysis with humor. This book succeeds.

As for the meat of the book, statistical analysis of chart patterns, Bulkowski's book has no rivals. I have read many other books on TA, and the pure chart pattern discussion here is the best by far. Refreshingly, very little mention of other indicators is made, although RSI and CCI crop up a couple times. I've used all the indicators at one time or another, and finally realized that they are all based on either price or volume anyway. I'm still not convinced they add value.

As an example of the chart pattern discussions, imagine you were considering trading a double top pattern. When is the right time to get in? What kind of double top is it, anyway? What are the chances of success or a reversal to the breakout line? How does the double top pattern compare to, or rank among, other patterns you could trade? What happens after the breakout, typically? Very good questions, and very good answers provided.

Although I read the book cover to cover, you may find it just as useful to use as a reference. However, I did order Bulkowski's "Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns, 2nd Edition" on the strength of this book.

Summary
If you are an experienced trader looking for a review of chart patterns or a novice trader curious what all those funny pattern names mean, this is your book. It is worth double the price Amazon is selling it for.

Good luck and good trading.

Price of the financial instruments exists in two states: dynamic up or down move ( trend ) or congestion ( more or less horizontal move ). Chart patterns are nothing but these congested areas. Patterns start where trend ends. Unlike other TA tools, chart patterns contain information. But to be able to derive it from the pattern you need to be able to read them. This book is a nice introduction on the patterns from the World-class expert in the field.

I gave this book five stars because no more stars are available. Otherwise I would give it ten or twenty. Why would I buy this book? First off, this is a cheap way of learning about the chart patterns from the expert. Secondly, the book presents very nice section on failing patterns ( busted ). Thirdly, while there is some literature out there on the patterns, I believe Tom Bulkowski was the first in the history of TA who actually conducted so thorough research on pattern performance.

Bulkowski won't give you some B.S. promises about you becoming millioner overnight. The book provides realistic account on the dangers associated with trading patterns. But he also provides you with tools. If you are interested in trading in stocks I really do not see how you can get by without this volume. I would certainly buy it. Ten or so buck you going to spend on it will turn into thousands if you are attentive enough to what Tom says in the book.

Tom Bulkowski is the Man! As a novice, I found Bulkowski's rules of acquisition and disposition to be clear and concise. Chapter 11 "The Art of Trading - Checklists" is a reference bible that you can use religiously before trading. This book holds a wealth of knowledge for the beginner. I can't pretend to go in depth more than reviewer Mark Dankowski or Daniel J. Grill did. But, I would like to mention the one thing that they did not mention

When I first started reading the book I was looking at dozens of charts online in an effort to see the patterns that Tom refers to. During the first three days in reading his book I was actually using my bookmarker to trace trend lines on my notebook screen. Then I remembered reading that Tom has a web site listed in the Acknowledgements section at the beginning of the book. I never thought to go to the web site until the pain of holding my bookmarker kicked in. Tom's web site offers a bevy of informational bonanzas.

Bonanza number one: Patternz
This is FREE Chart Pattern Recognition Software. Put the bookmarker down and download historical prices free from Yahoo finance and Patternz will display the chart plus all of the chart patterns of your choosing. WOW! This software is worth ten times the price of the book. I paid retail. $19.95.

Bonanza number two: Patterns, patterns, and more patterns to study.

Bonanza number three: Pattern Rankings, based on percentage of success.

Bonanza number four: Trading Help: Rules of acquisition & disposition. Measure rule.

Bonanza number five: Join the Quiz! This is a self help test of your skills. Tom emails you a chart to see if you can identify all of the patterns therein. Are you seeing all of the patterns that Tom sees? This is a measure of how ready you are to start trading for real.

Bonanza number six: Stop placements. Rules on where to place them.

Bonanza number seven: Trading Spreadsheet. Keeping track of your successes and failures.

Bonanza number eight: Definitions of terms.

Bonanza number nine: Studies in trading.

Plus, many more.

Bulkowski's "Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns" is the next must buy.

First, this book does include plenty of examples and the reader is certainly exposed to a wide range of chart patterns. That's a strength of this book. There isn't necessarily much depth here (I'll comment on that later), but if you're just looking for an inexpensive way to see different chart patterns play out this book seems as good as any.

Unfortunately, the book does not make for a good reading experience. It is not well-designed; figures are often a page turn or two away from where they are actually referenced in the text. You may find yourself spending more time flipping back and forth between pages than actually reading the author's words. And then there is 'Jake,' an unlikable and unbelievable fictional character who only seems to fill up space in this book and break up the flow of actual content with terrible jokes.

The content of the book left much to be desired. I thought Bulkowski's research would be a strength of this book, but it actually serves as more of a distraction to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of statistics. A an average of 3% price difference over a small sample of cases is not meaningful. That's not to say there isn't helpful research in the book. There is. But he doesn't do a good job of explaining how most of it is inconclusive.

Perhaps the worst part of the book is that it lacks depth in many places where an extra page or two would be helpful to the novice reader. In these places, the author simply directs readers to his own books and books that have been published by his publisher. Other helpful books on technical analysis are not mentioned. Basically, this book is so affordable because it's little more than an advertisement for other books published by Wiley and Sons.

The faults of this book are nicely exemplified on page 27. Here, the author shares a method for detecting trend change. But as it turns out, this method is supported by very weak statistical evidence. Then he claims you can do better than the method he proposes, but only if you buy a 1991 book by Victor Sperendeo. Sperendeo's book is published by John Wiley and Sons, of course.

In sum, there are plenty of examples and a nice index of chart patterns in the back of the book. But the book seems purposefully incomplete and designed to get you to buy some other books. I recommend skipping this book; save yourself a little money and just purchase one of the more complete books that are out there.

I have been interested in stock market trading for a long time. Mr. Bulkowski is the first author I have encountered who is extremely realistic about the risks involved in trading. He is frank about the reality that you will most likely lose money in trading. I appreciate that honesty. That said, he gives one tools about how to maximize profits and minimize losses, so that one can come out ahead overall.

This is an extremely readable book, artfully crafted with his fictional character to keep the reader engaged while learning important points about trading. This is a very helpful book to one who is beginning, yet is a book for advanced traders to keep close for constant reference. I have read it cover to cover, and still refer to it frequently.

I have found very useful information on Mr. Bulkowski's website, to which another reviewer refers. That review spoke volumes about his website, so there is no need to expound further on it here.

"Getting Started in Chart Patterns" is an excellent reference guide and one of the few books on the market which reports the performance of individual chart patterns (based on Tom's extensive testing). Certainly it is a good leader to Tom's mothership book, "Encyclopedia of Chart patterns" and is a bargain at $20 (even more so at the $13 Amazon is offering the book).

One of my pet peeves when I first got interested in Technical Analysis was the cost of many of the books and it was hard to find cheap books which provide a feeler as to what Technical Analysis is all about. Other than the "Encyclopedia" there is no other book out there of its type and is worth having on this merit alone.

The book is not without its faults. First and foremost was the irritating use of "Jake" as the protagonist of the real-world trades offered as examples throughout. The conversational style employed to describe the trades didn't fit with the cold facts offered by the rest of the book and came across as too high school, if the author had stuck to the style of his chapter on "More Trades - Putting it all Together" then this would have been more appropriate. It's a small gripe and others may disagree with me - but the real world trades nicely support the cold statistics on offer for each pattern.

The book has a handy chapter on The Top 10 Performing Bottoms, ranking them from 1-10 including flags, pipe bottoms, rounding bottoms, triangles, wedges, eve-eve double bottoms and the ever popular head-and-shoulder pattern. It would have been good to see the same treatment given to tops (there is a section on tops, but it is more haphazard in its composition), something for the next edition perhaps?

I did like the section on Busted Patterns as well as a cheat sheet index of chart patterns and a table showing a list of chart pattern performance and ranking which can be photocopied and stuck on a wall.

The book is best used as an accompaniment to a more introduction style book on Technical Analysis - it provides the performance data necessary to help develop your own scans for selecting stocks eg. For my own research, when is it important to include volume as a component of a scan.

Again, for the price you can't go wrong.

This book is very clearly written and should appeal to both novices as well as those who would like to test their knowledge of technical analysis. Lots of examples with detailed explanations. A minimum of jargon. Entry & exit advice is excellent. Worth the price.

I've been looking for the book like this for over a year. The knowledge of an expert presented in a simple, clear and brilliant way.It contains everything a novice trader needs to set up a trade. In addition the price is incredibly low. "Getting Started In Chart Patterns" is really a Gift for new and motivated trader.

I thought this book is a skimmed version of the author's more expensive and extensive book "Trading Classic Chart Patterns". Yet whatever is the reason, the author invents a fictional character "Jake Murphy" to conversate throughout this book. This character really disconcentrate the reader through the content of the book. If you want to suffer peeling off "Jake" while reading this book for sake of saving a few dollars, go ahead and buy this book. If not, the book "Trading Classic Chart Patterns" is a much better choice for a few dollars more and it is "Jake free", it seems.

I'm an options trader, so timing is everything in my business. This book is not the be all and end all of chart patterns. This is the book to Get you Started in Chart Patterns. It is the best Getting Started Book I've read, though I did enjoy Candlestick Charting as well by Tina Lagon.

Yes, he does advertise his more expensive books, The Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns and Trading Classic Chart Patterns, but you know what, they are all completely worth it. They were my next logical step in my education to learn about charting. Stock charts tell you everything you need to know about people's opinion's of companies. I personally still use some basic fundamentals along the line of CANSLIM, because I believe a strong company gets an even better opinion with people, though I do play shere technical swings.

I have become quite good with the help of equipment like [...], which gives you a semi-realtime candle of what the chart is doing. Using the methods in this book and his other books, I have been able to rock the market, protect my wins, get out with small losses, and make a very good amount of money.

Thomas Bulkowski is not the greatest writer I've read, but, he's most certainly the most elaborate when it comes to the statistics of patterns, which I must say has given me huge help in securing greats amount of profits. On Wednesday I bought PPO, on thursday, I sold half my position getting my money back, and securing me a profit no matter what happens. The stock promptly fell, and I've been holding as the stock picked up. It all started with this book. Not only does it give you information on what to look for with successful patterns but what to look for with failing patterns. Like I did this week, when I bought a put in NGLS, thinking it formed a bear flag. I got out with a 1,500 dollar loss.

Start with this book, and keep studying, no one can master the market, you can only be a constant student of it. And this book will help you start to get ahead of the class.