Customer Reviews

Market Evaluation and Analysis for Swing Trading

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

David Nassar and William Lupien have written another detailed and high-quality book on trading. I reviewed their last book on AMAZON entitled "Rules of the Trade" in March 2001. This book focuses specifically on swing trading (trading for a few days to weeks), as opposed to day trading. Nassar is not only an accomplished and profitable trader and teacher, but also an outstanding public speaker. If you expect to make money trading, then pay attention to what Nassar has to say. His books are always packed with useful information that can be applied to typical trading situations.

This book offers readers a solid resource on understanding the markets, how to understand themselves, and how to swing trade using various strategies. This 339-page trading guide is comprised of sixteen chapters, an appendix with interviews of the co-founders of Townsend Analytics, Ltd., a three-page bibliography, and a comprehensive index.

The book is divided into two major sections. The first five chapters cover "Psychology and Patterns". And the second section contains ten sections covering "Methods and Tactics".

The authors begin their journey by delving into the psychology- - personal and market--behind the market's movements and what information they use to find investing opportunities. Then they explain the difference between trading and investing, and explain cyclical markets and momentum trends. Also addressed are the random walk theory, elasticity trading (based on recent pre-established price levels), managing uncertainty, elasticity rules, and tactics and tips.

An entire chapter is devoted to "Market Symmetry" which are specific harmonious market patterns. The four stages of the business cycle (contraction, trough, expansion, and peak) are compared to the stock market's four stages (accumulation, markup, distribution, and decline). Fibonacci levels are explained in the context of finding price patterns. Numerous charts illustrate all the points being made.

Technical analysis is briefly reviewed in a separate chapter. Here there is a discussion of accumulation and distribution, support and resistance, daily, hourly and ten-minute charts, trends, volume, and moving averages. Plentiful graphic examples are provided to bring home the concepts.

Section two is the heart of the book and contains strategies, as well as the actual techniques that the authors currently use and teach others to swing trade the markets. Favorite indicators explained with charts include: RSI, TRIN, Directional Movement, true range, ADX, and stochastics with divergences.

Moving averages are described in detail in a separate chapter. Topics covered include simple moving averages, moving average crossovers, stops, and MACD. Other chapter cover momentum trading, use of Level II screens, reading the tape, trading volatility, rules and strategies for NYSE stocks, trading financial futures, systems and pair trading, seasonal trading and tax loss selling, and risk management strategies.

Those individuals who plan to swing trade should read this solid addition to the trading literature before risking a penny of their money.

I rated the authors' previous book "Rule of the trade" with four stars and wrote the title of my review on Amazon as "Concise but covers +95% of rules I need to bear in mind". However, I had been very disappointed by this new one.

The authors are definitely gurus in trading and trading psychology. Nevertheless, their explanation of TA tools are extremely clumsy and disorganised, in particular the sections on Stochastics and MACD. That made me very frustrated because over half of the book was about TA from which I really could not get any significant benefit from reading it. Those regarding system trading, trading strategies etc are badly written as well. I just cannot recall and apply what I had read into my daily trading practice. There's not a holistic and organised picture about trading, and not to mention swing trading (a term you surprisingly scarce in a book with a title "for swing trading") at all.

In a word, a sub-standard trading book not to be recommended.

I read many books and some of them are very interesting and some other are poor. I bought this book with a positive expectaction due to the well-known success of the authors, but I was disappointed.

From the first to the last page the entire book tries to sell the RealTick platform. It seems to me the only reason this book had been written.

The authors treat the reader like a dumb-stupid-idiot with statement like this: "why calculate rsi by hand if RealTick do the math for you?", or "fortunately the RealTick platform can calculate MACD". Every software package can do these things.

I suspect that the methods explained in the book, are poorly explained to leave the (ignorant) reader unsatisfied and with an urge to buy the RealTick platform...

If you are an idiot buy this book and the RealTick platform :-)

For years I have been intrigued by the market, but understood little. There exist many theories, approaches and opinions. I knew I didn't trust most of them since stock rarely mirrored the fundamentals. Then I met David Nasser in Chicago at a convention. He traded two consecutive days and made great money. I never met anyone willing to do that in front of 250 people before. This guy did it with confidence. He explained why he did every trade, and at the break he told me something that I don't think I will ever forget. He said, "The chart tells the stocks news before the media can". All of the sudden, years of confusion made sense. The chart reflects the opinion of the market not any one analyst or broker. I then decided to read this book which I only just finished today. I got to tell you it is amazing. The explanation of why things happen as they do in the markets and the ways to exploit the human dynamic by reading charts and understanding psychology captivated me. I never read anything that explained it so well and convincingly. I don't know if I can make money, but I do know the factors that drive the market as expressed in this wonderful collection of ideas are true. The authors are honest when they state that this book won't make you money, only the person can do that for themselves. They make it clear that making money isn't easy. It's a job. But they also show you a path with plenty of light at the end of the tunnel. I appreciate that kind of integrity in a book.

Here is one particular quote I liked, "You will never crack the code of the market. It can't be broken, and it can't be mastered or even completely understood. The best you can hope to achieve is to gain a fine statistical edge over mass-market consensus, also know as price. But even if your edge give you a wining trade less than 50% of the time, by applying proper risk management principals you can still be quite profitable". "Greed governs most participants' imagination, and therefore most participants enter on weak foundational analysis and exit on strong emotion. Fear is that emotion".

Read This Book!

This book is totally empty of any useful concepts.
Its just a way to promote Nassar's trading school.
Get Master Swing Trader instead. The people giving this book
good reviews are probably not traders or maybe are
Nassars friends.

I know nothing about trading. By that I mean that all my skill or lack thereof has been through experience. This was the first book I purchased and read on the subject in order to refine what little I understood about the stock market.

The first half of the book seemed great. I was very encouraged by both authors' obvious knowledge in the field of trends and their sections on market psychology (which in retrospect seemed a bit simple-minded, but OK).

However, the last few chapters on MACD, stochastics and other phenomenon proved to be poorly written and unorganized. Throughout the volume I was bombarded with advertisements for RealTick, the authors' favorite trading platform that would "do everything" for me.

By the end I was skipping ten pages at a time. For the novice or uneducated this might be a good read. Definitely buy it online if you must have it. The book store sticker price cost me $55, which according to the authors' wisdom would have been better spent buying some QQQQ.

I can't explain the level of information in this goldmine of a book. I trade every day and find this book the most useful guide I have read to date. The information on listed trading as well as the psychological explanation of indicators has opened my eyes to theory and practice that know one has been able to explain. I sent three copies to trading friends as gifts. Great work here!

this book left a very strong impression on me...I have read maybe 350 books on trading in the last 12 years ...and this is without a doubt one of the best...especially where they talk about trading in different time frames ...just a really good, thought provoking piece of work...I loved it.

I loved the information and the insights that come through. I trade a little longer term, but this will help me shorten my time in trades and reduce risk. Risk is the most important part of investing and this book speaks to reducing it regardless of the strategy being taught.

I also enjoyed the fact that this book does not read like a text book. The pages turn easy without sacrificing information. I am reading it again for the more technical studies. Like a good movie, I keep picking up more things I missed the first time through.

As far as the cost, it is a bit expensive to buy, but a real bargain by the time you read it. Worth many times the cost so don't let the price tag scare you.

If you're just starting off trading or a beginner looking to learn what trading is all about, I would put this one off for a while and come back after you've completed a few other books. Overall, it's a good reference for many different types of technical indicators and trading methods. I like the fact that the author includes the actual formulas for each indicator and explanations for the different parameters. Again, I would recommend this book to people who have been trading for a little while and are looking to learn more or looking for additional methods to implement in their trading system. This book doesn't offer an entire system in itself but is more of a manual loaded with advice on how to use the different tools of the trade.