140 of 153 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
nothing new here except exaggerated claims, November 8, 2002
The author's claim he turned $33,000 into 7 million in 15 months is extraordinarily unlikely, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. However, you will not find any trade confirmations or affidavits from accountants in his book. In fact, he does not even detail one single trade he has ever made. One might wonder why someone who is supposedly so proficient at trading needs to write books, run a trading website, hawk videos, infomercials, etc. His book also contains numerous errors that make me wonder if he has ever traded at all. For example, he doesn't appear to understand the details of the new SEC day-trading rules, particularly the increased margin available under these rules to intraday traders. He states that Datek (now merged with Ameritrade) is not a direct-access broker (false). In fact, Datek at one time owned a chunk of the Island ECN, the ECN used almost exclusively by all sophisticated traders.
If the author did manage to achieve the gains he claims, it would have been during the very end of the biggest bull market in history, a speculative bubble that will probably never repeat itself in our lifetimes. Many of the "trends" which are the basis of his trading strategy no longer exist. For example, IPO and stock-split plays. In this current market, how many IPOs or stock splits have you heard of recently? Although the book discusses many solid trading rules such as always using stops on every trade, these rules can be found in a thousand other books on trading.
The most important part of trading, the mental and psychological barriers that need to be overcome in order to be successful are really not discussed at all, or are simply assumed. Ultimately, the book is irresponsible because it does not ever disclose how difficult it is to succeed at trading. For example, Massachusetts regulators seized the records of one day-trading firm in the late '90s. They found that the firm had 68 traders, and 67 of them were losing money. This works out to be close to the typical failure rate of 97% for individuals who attempt to trade for a living. Do I think the author is one of the 3% who made it? Nope. It's much easier to write books on how to trade than to actually do it.
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46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Like the author, but the book lacks substance, April 22, 2006
I like the guy. I enjoy watching his infomercials, and the book is entertaining. His writing style is refreshingly down-to-earth, humorous, and somewhat motivational.
I want to point out that this is NOT a book on daytrading, it is on swing-trading. The only mention of any intraday trading is "fading the morning gaps" which is only passingly mentioned in the book, not even really described. Years ago I saw on his infomercial where he was asked if his material was about daytrading and his reply was a firm "No! Too risky!" Judging by the column in Kiplingers a couple months ago it would seem he has changed that stance, as that writer had participated in his service that advises fading the morning gaps.
For years he has sung his mantra of "Trend trading." It's a branding thing he is doing, inventing the term and associating it with himself. Good marketing, no doubt. But he uses the term "Trend" in a different way than everybody else in the trading world. To him it means the trend of a certain perceived catalyst that is expected to move a stock's price rather than the actual price movement of the stock. For example, stocks that are expected to have a positive earnings announcement have a "trend" of upward movement the weeks prior to the announcement.
The first issue I have with the book is a minor one and has been pointed out by other reviewers: The "trends" he speaks of just don't work. Maybe they did at one time, as David Nassar has written about trading earnings whisper numbers in the past as well. But they don't work now. Let's review:
*FADING THE MORNING GAPS - As an active daytrader I heavily advise against this. If you are going to trade the opening minutes on volatile issues you are going to get seriously chopped up. This is pure gambling and you will take some large losses. Now, if you wait 15 minutes or so until they break the opening range, you might have something. In fact I do this myself. But I have found by experience that the stronger trade is always in the direction of the morning gap, not against it. In fact some of the best trade setups are those that start to fade the gap, find support or resistance into the gap a ways, and then move back in the direction of the gap. Some of those run the rest of the day directionally.
*EARNINGS ANNOUNCEMENTS - during the bull market when Waxie turned $30,000 into $2 million I'm sure this worked great. Upcoming earnings announcements these days have little or no affect on a stock's direction in the weeks before the announcement. This is debatable, and I can't prove it, but nobody can prove otherwise either. Looks pretty random to me.
*STOCK SPLITS - same deal, upcoming splits do not cause a stock to run up unless the market itself is running up. No help here.
*IPO PLAYS - good luck with these. Lockup periods, insiders allowed to sell dates, etc., the early days of IPO trading are highly speculative and I have seen no evidence that anything that happens with them acts as a tradable catalyst.
*SECTOR SYMPATHY PLAYS ON NEWS - OK this actually works, but absolutely no information is given on how to go about finding and trading them. And what time-frames to trade them in is not even touched upon. It's an empty concept.
My bigger problem with the book is that it completely lacks substance. In the author's rebuttle below he states that "...if the rules are followed you WILL make money." That's great news! It sure would have been nice if any of these rules were included in the book. There are none. I guess we are supposed to buy the $5,000 package to get the rules?
So it's really basic stuff with no real details. A better title for the book would be "Trading with Dick and Jane." Hey, maybe I'll write that one!
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