Customer Reviews

Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar: The Technical Analysis of Price Action for the Serious Trader (Wiley Trading)

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I am a trader who, as the author does, uses price action to trade. I advance-ordered this book, because its title promised a detailed discussion of price action well beyond what is generally available in the typical books on trading. In this regard I am not disappointed. The author, who is a scalper, does offer what I consider to be the best presentation of how to select trade entries and exits using price action. This is an approach that many good traders use, but it is an art rarely written about in great detail. If an in depth discussion of bar to bar price action is what you're after, the Brooks' book may be your only choice.

Unfortunately the book has many annoying faults that could have easily been remedied by better writing, careful editing, and better layout and printing. The main fault is the writing. What the text needs is careful editing by one skilled in technical writing and armed with a red pencil. There are too many needless words and too many awkward sentences. Sentences such as "Bar 15 was a break to a new low, and it had a strong bull reversal bar off the new low, and it overshot two bear trend channel lines." (Pg 298) Sadly, this kind of writing confronts us on every page. Presumably, the author meant to say: "Bar 15 broke to a new low but closed as a strong bull reversal bar that overshot two bear-trend channel lines." There are so many run-on sentences that one wonders whether the author is trying to start a war on commas. Punctuation is far too lax. This may seem like nitpicking to some, but these faults, all easily corrected, make reading this book far more of a chore than it ought to be. There is really no excuse for such poor editing in a fifty-dollar book. I suppose the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, is as much at fault as the author.

In spite of its faults, this book must be commended on being the first to take on an analysis of price action in such depth. Perhaps with a second edition we will get a book that looks and reads as it ought to. If so, Dr. Brooks' book could potentially find itself in the top rank of books on trading.

Al Brooks has published several articles for Futures Magazine. He has also done online seminars for the ITRADE Futures show. The style of trading Brooks utilizes a simple, but it is not easy.

He trades strictly price action, no indicators, which is the only true path to trading success. This style of trading goes all the way back to the greats like Jesse Livermore.

This book covers just about every price signal combination imaginable. It is chocked full of great signal explanations and illustrations. If you study the material in this book, it is guaranteed to help your trading.

That being said, as the cover of his book states, this is a study for the "Serious Trader". This is NOT an easy read. It is obviously written by a trader for traders and not a polished author. I do not believe Brooks intended to appeal to the masses.

Beginners will most likely be completely lost. Hobbyist traders will find it long and boring.

Trading is like any career. It takes hard work, dedication and many years of study. Brooks himself admits it took him 10 years.

If you are a serious trader, then this book is for you, 5 stars, excellent. If you are looking for the magic indicator or a get rich quick system, you will be disappointed.

The best book on trading I have read so far. Rather than a book however, it is more like a text book. You can spend an hour on 3 pages and still need to read it over again. He introduces and uses a vocabulary not used elsewhere, basically because he has a unique view on the market. Do a search on "EMA gap bar", or "Final Failed Flag", or "M2S second entry" on google and you will find no one else, yet they are such important concepts.
As the book title states, he describes bar by bar the battle going on in the market between bulls and bears. His bar analysis (trending bars, doji bars) is also unique but also accurate. I think anyone adopting this books style will become a successful trader. However, as the other reviews state, this is not an easy read, but neither are the markets easy to profit from.
He describes the various faces that the market reveals and how to respond to each. This is not a trading system book, rather a book trying to teach the reader the language that the market speaks.
The focus of the book is for scalping and occasionally swing trading, but the principles can also be extended for long term trading.
I am glad I found this book.

Al Brooks explains the behavior behind price patterns by way of bar analysis in superb detail. You'll understand how indicators plots what just happened whereas reading price action gives an immediate heads up as to what's really going on and the psychology behind it. Lots of material are covered, all based on sound market principles. Possibly the best book on trading in terms of practical value I've read. It's not an easy read, but if one is really committed to master the markets, this book is a must have.

First of all this is a fantastic book. It is dense because Al Brooks has managed to condense 10 years of experience into a readable size. It is hard to read because reading the market is not easy and trading is hard.

The biggest benefit of price action trading is that you know your risk before you enter a trade (signal bar size + 2 ticks). Scalping half allows you to profit even on moves that reverse quickly (most moves). Letting the other half run lets you profit from trends.

Will you be able to read this over the weekend and start making money right away? No. It takes years to be a consistent trader. I had already figured out a few things on my own, but this book possibly saved me 5 years or so it would take me to learn all this on my own.

If you are already trading real money, this book is a definite buy.

This book is definitely worth its price. Even more so if you buy it at a discount.
This and Robert Miner's High Probability Trading Strategies are the best books on discretionary trading around in my opinion.
Both books cover stocks, futures and forex trading.
Reading Price Charts Bar By Bar puts emphasis on every single bar in a price chart dismissing technical indicators except for a long term MA and trend lines. I also like to say the author, Al Brooks, puts emphasis on every single word in his book.
He recommends to start with chapter 15 - Best Trades - if you don't make any money yet. I recommend reading the Glossary first, and twice so, so you and the author speak the same language. Al Brooks discusses each chapter like Price Action, Trendlines, Failures, etc very carefully and thoroughly. This isn't a fast read, since he puts weight on each discussion. So knowing the terminology helps the reader grasp the ideas more easily.
If you think you'll miss a discussion about technical indicators like oscillators then you should read High Probability Trading Strategies, either instead of this one, or additionally to this one. Robert Miner speaks to long term traders, he doesn't approve of daytrading. While Al Brooks' book, I'm happy to say, is purely about scalping.
Though English isn't my native language I have to second the reviewer who gave it 3 stars because of poor editing.
I gave some books 5 stars which weren't nearly as good as the two books I'm reviewing here. I should give Reading Price Charts Bar By Bar 7 stars, but because I agree with the flaws of poor editing there'll be 5 stars only.

This book is excellent for the trader with a basic understanding of technical analysis. Though it is primarily written for the day trader it is also benefical for swing and position traders. The only reason I didn't rate this book 5 stars is that in a couple of places you weren't perfectly clear on the intricacy of the set-up he was demonstrating without refering to the glossary. Overall you will definitly get your moneys worth from reading this book.

There is not a lack of books on classical technical analysis, on indicators, on smart set ups and on trader's psychology. But there is simply not a book like this one. It is completely based on pure price action.

As Brooks at one point states, "I read charts bar by bar and look for any information that each bar is telling me. They are all important."

Confronted with so many clever mechanisms, traders that maintain trading rooms with three or more large high resolution screen monitors, quantitative trading strategies and smart indicators, there is nothing more revealing than when Brooks explains how he often trades: "I have found that I consistently make far more money by minimizing what I have to consider when placing a trade. All I need is a single chart on my laptop computer with no indicators except a 20-bar exponential moving average."

Instead of giving you different maps and different directions, Brooks shows you how maps are drawn, and how to read any of them. An essential, unique, pleasurable and insightful book. The kind of book that stands out on its own.

There are certainly flaws. Many of the charts are printed just too small (fortunately, all the charts of the book are available in a large format at the publisher's website). The book would benefit from a better printing format. The detailed explanation of the charts could be greatly improved by a skilled technical editor. Yet don't let these flaws distract you from its greatness. Hopefully a second edition will correct them and finally place this book as a classic - as it so well deserves. But nothing is ever perfect.

After reading this book, you will never look at a chart the same way again. You couldn't possibly imagine how much information and how much importance to your trading every bar of a 5-minute chart could ever convey. As I mentioned above, there are hundreds of books on technical analysis, on options and on futures trading. But there is just a single book in the market on the power of following pure price action. And this is the one.

Al Brooks is obviously a trading genius. But he's not a writer. The publisher, John Wiley and Sons Inc., is mainly to blame since any serious publisher of non-fiction works with its authors to make their writing clear and accessible. Wiley seriously blew it and I hope Mr. Brooks has taken them to task for it.

Unfortunately for Mr. Brooks and those of us who would benefit from his experience, much of the book is almost unintelligible, as if Mr. Brooks looked at his charts and dictated his analysis. Any trader trying to extract the wisdom from the usual read through will be bewildered. Even the glossary is not complete. For example, terms used in the first hundred pages are not explained until the third hundred pages and don't appear in the glossary at all (e.g. Failed Final Flag). From an editing point of view, it's a nightmare. While it was helpful for Wiley to put the charts on their website for download, I would STRONGLY recommend they also make a more complete version of the glossary and a much more extensive index available.

Well, dear reader, what to do? How can you get what Al has to say and do something with it?

First, grab a highlighter and pencil. Whenever Al reveals his nuggets of gold, usually at the beginning of a chapter or section, highlight them and then write them in your own words to be sure you got the point. Seriously. Did you get it? No? Read it again. No? Again! Make sure you get it. If not, make a note in the margin. Maybe it will be clearer on your second read... yes, you will have to read the book at least twice.

The next bit is where he uses charts to show examples. Download them from the Wiley site and print them out, one page each. For easier reference from the text, I made a margin note in the book, marking the paragraphs referring to a specific chart. Get a red pen and mark up the charts, checking off where you get it and putting question marks where you don't get it. Note that sometimes placement of the numbered bars do NOT seem to be the bars Al was referring to, so you'll have to read his explanation carefully to be sure you know which bar he's talking about. If you get everything Al's referred to, check off the whole chart. Unless you are Al Brooks himself, there will be some charts where you still didn't get it. Oh well, make a note in the margin for later... after you've finished the book, some earlier question marks will no doubt be resolved.

Using nested bullet points, make a detailed summary of each chapter in order. Never mind if something doesn't seem to fit or belongs somewhere else.

Because now comes the fun part. You will find that Al has diamonds scattered all over the text, so you have to gather them up and figure out where they go. Cut and paste until it makes sense to you. Really, there's so much, but it's so badly organized that you'll spend some time figuring it all out. But... but... if you can do it you'll have Al's Gift... years of experience that you don't have to learn yourself with a lot of time and lost dollars.

It takes ages to extract this info, but if Wiley won't do their friggin' job, you have no choice but to do it yourself. If you complete your summary of the whole book in less than 40 pages of 9 point Verdana bullets, you're doing better than me.

Next, get on your analysis program and start watching the right side of the screen. Make notes of what you think is going on. Afterwards, print out the chart and mark where you decided the price action was happening. How did it go? Try some practice trades (no real money) and see what happens. Don't plunge into real money trades until at least half your trades are winners and your practice account balance is consistently growing.

Good luck and profitable trading.

I love this book! It has some very real explanations of how to actually trade price.

I have bought tons of books and other junk in the past two years, but this book is by far the best item I've purchased related to trading. And that includes courses from gurus.

We look high and low for the next magic indicator that is going to take our trading to the next level. But if we took the time to understand the essential key to trading....which is understanding price, we'd be well on our way.

Be warned, this book is a tough read, and not organized in the most cohesive manner! But once you get ahold of the material, it will be worth it.