Customer Reviews

The Master Swing Trader: Tools and Techniques to Profit from Outstanding Short-Term Trading Opportunities

5 star:		(136)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(75)

 

 

I realize there are many people who are very passionate about this book, but I am not one of them.

I bought this book when it first came out and have tried multiple times to get something out of it. I just can't. It is an impressive looking book to flip through, though. There are complicated looking charts throughout, and the natural first thought is how exciting it will be to be able to utilize these charts and the tools behind them. I kept reading and reading, waiting for him to get to his point. It just never comes. And the book is written in this almost sing-song like tone. I wish I was an English major so I could better describe it. It's almost like reading an endless string of fortune cookies. Here's a random example from a random page I just opened up to (all of the writing in the book is just like this): "Modify personal style frequently as skills grow. Experience awakens fresh tactics. Trading rules should not strangle fresh ideas. Update them to incorporate your trading evolution. Decide where to place focus at the beginning of each market day. Choose wisely and setups will explode as predicted." Picture over 400 pages of this kind of writing and you have this book.

I realize I will get panned by those who are, for some reason, really into this book. I am writing this review to try to appeal to those who can be objective. There is a common thread among the negative reviews for this book. Pay attention to it. It is not just a coincidence.

After reading this book, I thought that the author is extremely dishonest, and that the book should be named as
"Swing Rambling On Specially Selected Stock Charts By A Random Mind".

If there is anything that could be called "new" in this "book", it is the dishonesty of the writer who made such "tardemark-claim" on the so-called "seven bells". Yet there is nothing, not a single "bell" is defined in any way, even not defined loosely. That's only useful for the writer: since nobody could test it, or claim whether or not they actually work. Sound familiar? Uh!!! It reminded me the infamous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

I would like to give the writer a second chance: If he could define a single thing out of the "7 bells" on this board, I will be more glad to tell him what is wrong with his "work."

This book was too abstract for a trading book and didn't have much substance. There really isn't much you can use in this book to actually make trades with. Farley is basically a legend in his own mind I think. If you want a good book that has a lot of substance and will actually teach you how to trade, get 'how to profit in bull and bear markets' by stan weinstein, I consistantly make money from the techniques and ideas in that book. Take care, Bob.

I can only read a few pages of this book at one time before becoming brain-fogged from the choppy, over-dense writing style.

An example that is typical of nearly every sentence without relief: "Each fresh piece of information shocks the common knowledge and builds a dynamic friction that dissipates through volatility-driven price movement."

Huh? It's rather fascinating in a way because one can understand all the words, but still not quite get the sentence. Page after page after page of this stuff until you want to scream from having to read the same sentence repeatedly.

The book was expensive enough that I regret having bought it, because I'm sure I'll never wade through it. He may have some good ideas, but he definately doesn't have the skill to communicate them through writing.

One almost gets the feeling the author is a foreign speaker with a too-extensive English vocabulary or that he consulted a thesaurus every third word.

I'm giving it 2 stars because one can't help but believe all that verbiage must mean *something.*

First read Mr. DiBona's review of 3/21/2002 below, with which I entirely agree. I've traded professionally on the PHLX, been trading full-time from home for over 3 years, and read close to 20 related books. If you are new to trading, I recommend Alexander Elder and/or Van Tharpe. Beyond that, read Larry Williams, Linda Rashke, Larry Connors, John R. Hill (publisher of Futures Truth magazine), and John Murphy. For fun, read any of Jack Schwager's "Market Wizard" books (the first is the best). Complete your library with classics from Edwards & Magee and Welles Wilder. Then, and only then, begin to trade with your hard-earned money. Good luck!

I meant to put no stars on this book at all.

The author can't even write more than two sentences before running into some concepts which he could not understand or could not explain. Same thing happened in all those "admiring" comments on this board. Either they are just hired pumpers, or they could only ramble on something they could not understand just like the author himself did in this book.

DO NOT WAIST TIME OR MONEY ON THIS GARBAGE.

I didn't even finish it. 1/3 of the way through I had enough of his ego and lack of defined technique. The writing style is poor compared to the library of books behind me at my desk. Sounded too much like some of the get rich quick books out there. Save your money buy something with real stats and no ego, like Nison, Bulkowski, or Murphy.

The Master Swing Trader by Alan Farley will improve your chart reading skills faster than any other trading book I have read (and I have a LARGE technical analysis library.) Whether you trade from 5 minute charts or never look at the market during the trading day, this book will improve your bottom line.

Every book claims it is going to help you understand chart patterns, but then limits the coverage to items like the classical head-and-shoulders or triangle patterns using standard breakout techniques. Alan takes you inside these patterns, and often shows you how to beat the crowd by understanding what is really happening. His approach has much lower risk and often a higher profit potential.

And that is only the start. Classical patterns are the ones that "everyone" knows, but unfortunately, what everyone knows seldom makes money. The Master Swing Trader takes the concepts that make up patterns, and shows you where invisible trades often exist. But since the general public doesn't see the early trade, they buy or sell after you have established your position. This improves your risk/reward ratio even further.

This book is not for the absolute beginning trader, since it assumes some knowledge of basic technical analysis. There are several points in the book where Alan assumes you have already heard of Vic Sperandeo's 2B Top or Dr. Alexander Elder's Triple Screen method. (Keep reading - they are eventually explained.) But if you are looking for a book that does more than just rehash existing materials, this is the one you've been looking for, this is the one.

As I write this there have been 229 reviews before mine. So, I'm not sure what my input will accomplish at this point but I feel compelled to give it anyway.

First, let's get the issue of the author's writing style out of the way. No one's going to confuse him with Steinbeck, but he's NOT difficult to understand if you're a trader with a high school education and you're fluent in English. If you're of reasonable intelligence and, more importantly, if you already have experience with trading and technical analysis, you'll understand everything just fine. In other reviews people have commented that they have a need to be entertained while reading books such as this, which makes me very happy because that's one less person I have to compete with for stock market profits. Worthwhile trading instruction doesn't grow on trees, and I'm more than happy to read a book like this just for the wealth of information it contains. If you want a great read, I'd recommend the new Dean Koontz. If you want to consistently make money in the markets, this is one book that can help you.

The writing notwithstanding, the meat of this book--the concepts--are priceless. I'm an experienced swing trader myself, and I tell you, success in short term trading is very, VERY difficult. It takes no less skill than does being a professional in any other field, and the learning curve is just as long and expensive. It's common knowledge that most new traders fail, and in this business failing means you've lost hard earned money. People say trading is a zero sum game, but that's way too kind--the small trader starts out in a hole. After you've overcome the commissions and the bid/ask spread and the games played by the specialists and other insiders designed to take your money and move the market the way they want, then and only then are you at "zero". Also, as Mr. Farley correctly points out, if a person has made a profit on a trade, he/she hasn't taken money from "the market", but directly from another person. One trader's gain is always another trader's loss, something we should never forget because it affects how the market moves (How? Read this book). It really is war out there, and the stakes are your future standard of living.

I've read Elder, Van Tharp, Marcel Link, O'Neil, Appel, Prechter, Lynch, Cramer, Soros, Schwager, Zweig, Williams, Muzea, Pring, Chande, and many others, so I know what the heavy hitters in the field have to say. I try to take at least one or two ideas from every book I read and incorporate them in my trading, but this book has so much I've had to take notes. The book is simply full of information swing traders need to keep in mind while trading, and I don't see how anyone can dispute that. Just his treatment of support/resistance, expansion/contraction and the proper use of bollinger bands justifies the price of the book.

I see the audience for this book as traders who have experience, who know what the typical indicators are and how they're constructed, traders who know the difference between a market order and a limit order and when to use one over another, but who perhaps haven't gotten over the hump in terms of making the profits they could be making. The book reminded me of things I'd forgotten, forced me to look at other things in a new light, and caused me to reexamine some techniques I had thrown out long ago because I wasn't using them to their fullest capacity.

By the way, the comments about the information being too general are way off base. You will NEVER in your lifetime see a book that says: "Step one: copy this code into your Tradestation program; 2. Follow the signals; 3. Retire rich to the south of France in two years". Well, you might see one but it'll be a scam. If you're a discretionary trader, no one can give you a precise road map of exactly what to do when you finish the book and fire up your trading software. It's impossible. The market is never exactly like it was in the past, so the only way to succeed is to take the guidelines people like Mr. Farley give you and practice trial and error real time. And, if you're a system trader, no one will ever give you properly configured code for a killer trading system, because it's well known that when enough people use the same system it stops working. They would be taking money out of their own mouth, and the system would be worthless after a relatively short while anyway. Just ask the Turtles about systems losing their punch.

To sum up, if you haven't read Elder and Van Tharpe, if you haven't spent a good amount of time looking at charts, if you haven't made a trade yet, by all means do all that first. Then you can come back and read this book, and it'll in all likelihood make sense to you.

BTW, I have no association with Mr. Farley in any way.

This is a market book worth spending your time with. The thing I enjoyed the most is how Farley begins with broad swing trading and TA concepts, and then drills down into practical trading applications and strategies. The examples and illustrations are clear, concise and thought-provoking. There is rarely a wasted word or idea throughout the book. You do have to take your time and be patient with this well-constructed material. Beginners can get through it, but they will probably need to check other reference materials in order to understand some of the definitions. And why not? There are well over a thousand TA books on the shelves. I would much rather spend my time reading original ideas that I can immediately apply to my trading than sit through yet another "101" type tutorial.

Farley sees what the rest of us understand with our pocketbooks these days: the easy money is gone and only the strong will survive. He does a great job laying the groundwork for anyone who wants to be a professional, or at least trade like one. This is the best book on the subject matter (swing trading, TA, even day trading) I've seen in the last 3 or 4 years.