Customer Reviews

Stan Weinstein's Secrets For Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets

5 star:		(90)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book has completely changed by perspective on trading or investing (there's a difference). With either one, I believe you will find this book VERY helpful and practical (recognizing breakouts, when to buy, when to sell, cycles of a stock's life, market timing, shorting stocks, establishing safeguards, various order types, etc.).

The book has a heavy emphasis on analyzing charts. This is a major plus, but it's very practical, not numbingly theoretical.

Weinstein is often compared to O'Neil in (momentum) investment style, but I find Weinstein's book much more systematic and well organized than anything I've read by O'Neil. I own 8 books about investing. This is the best, and the only one I go back to continually.

Bottom line: my portfolio has grown 30% in two months using his methodology, and it's kept me from making a LOT of bad decisions.

Don't let the date influence you. Start reading, and you will think he published it this year.

This is the best book on trading techniques that I have ever read. It is based on how to do "stage analysis," that is, looking at charts to determine whether a stock is going up, topping, declining, or bottoming out. The author stresses using stage analysis not only on individual stocks, but also on industry sectors as well as indexes like the Dow and Nasdaq.

I cashed out of my stocks three weeks before the recent Dow and Nasdaq declines, simply because, as luck would have it, I had just finished studying the chapter on spotting market tops. All the signs that Weinstein laid out so neatly in that chapter were apparent--it was truly a textbook case.

Anyone doing trading should know the information in this book....it's very basic, as the author teaches the minimum you need to know for success. But it works, and the information is presented clearly in very readable, friendly prose.

Reading this book will tell you a simple, effective way to trade on charts. No nonsense, no complex indicators, no sigma notation mathematical sequences, just basic, effective trading techniques.

It is for longer term trading, perhaps 3 months or more, depending on how long the stock trends upward. This is probably the best longer term trading method I have seen. It is so basic you may already know most of it (unless you are just starting), but this book puts chart reading into a simple, practical method that can be mastered. One of the problems I had with CANSLIM was when to sell. Reading this book will give what I consider a good answer on when to take profits. And, like the book says, go short.

I wouldn't say Weinstein's methods are "secrets," they are just 100% common sense, and very effective. CANSLIM investors may find this a very useful book on expanding charting knowledge.

It is one of my favorite trading/investing books.

To anyone who wants to beat the market and improve their success rate by learning and using Technical Analysis this book is a gauranteed way to get started. Its written in simple terms, has excelent examples and offers advice based on time-proven methods. Compared to other similar tomes on this subject it uses no math or formulas but relies on actual charts of stocks. The method teaches how to view price, volume and trend data so that stock picks yield winners 60 to 80% of the time and with gains (for me) 2x to 10x! It also provides lessons on the how to cut losses and how to learn the discipline of selling for maximum profit. This is a book which can (and must) be reread over and over as one gains expertise at Technical Analysis. The methods learned provide logical procedures which eliminate the hype of the stock market and turns the hype into profits. Weinstein's motto of the "Tape Tells All" is the foundation for success because it places stock action as the primary source of information over OPINION.

I have spent more that 1500 dollars on investing books. What a waste of time. If this were the first book I ever purchased I would not have needed to purchase another. This is the only investing book you will ever need, but you will need to subscribe to a decent charting service like tele-chart 2000 to get the full advantages of the book.

In the past 6 months, I have bought and read over 15 books on trading and investment (Van Tharp, LeBeau, Nison, Oz, O'Neill, Murphy) and this is by far one of the best books out there. At first, I was reluctant to purchase this book based on the date of publication (Pre 1990). But, as other great trading books, this one is a classic that should be in every library of technical investors/traders at an extremely affordable price.

Key points:
- Very practical, systematic and clear. Excellent communication. You don't get bored reading it.
- Sound trading system.
- Stan's stage analysis is a tremendous help to separate the stock price movement in stages. Very valuable insight.
- His stop loss explanation on both and long are extremely valuable and clear. He explained it in a step-by-step fashion. This alone can save you $$$ by locking-in your profit.
- Other excellent explanation: important chart patterns to be considered (he only selects the best ones), volume analysis, importance of Relative Strength and moving averages. What to buy, When to Buy, When to Sell, How to Short....And he separated those key processes between Traders and Investors. So, you will have a clear understanding of what to do. A step by step explanation on how you can find the A+ stocks using his "Forest to Trees" approach.
- Excellent Quiz & Answers and the end of each chapter that tremendously re-test you understanding of the important concepts.

If you're a beginner or intermediate, this book will certainly give you a huge boost in mastering chart reading as well as execution. Unlike any books that sort of short in explaining one critical area, I find Stan's book very clear and entertaining as well. It opens your eyes on what to look for in a chart.

Highly recommended!

While this book is well-written, the fact that the author's much-ballyhooed newlsetter, "The Professional Tape Reader," consistently is graded as one of the worst stock newsletters for bull market investing, is disappointing. A quick search of the Internet will confirm this for you; it is worth noting that the newsletter gets much higher marks for bear markets.

This book is by far the most outstanding book on investing that I have read and owned. Simply because, every technique, every statement Stan writes about has absolute clarity and no need for interpretation. Plus all these techniques can make you real money, as it has done to me.

This book is about technical investing. So you may pooh at high PEs and buy; likewise, low PE stocks may not be the right opportunity. Technical analysis of stocks study the supply/demand equation more than anything else. Stan believes that you can make money either in a bear or a bull market as the title says.

One of the biggest vaccuums in an amateur investors array of techniques is filled by this book's extensive coverage on shorting. Once you read this chapter, you will agree that shorting is as much a risk as buying long itself. Stan combines buying/selling short with excellent risk management techniques - the key to keeping sanity and preserving your portfolio from those two universal fears in investing - fear and greed.

The book discusses when to buy, how to refine the buying process, when to sell, selling short, recognizing market tops and bottoms all in a manner so clear that you won't have to read a sentence twice for the sake of understanding alone. The quizes at the end of each chapter are meant to reinforce your understanding and I think it is a great idea.

Though this book was published in 1988, every bit of it is relevant today and will be 100 years from now. In my 9 years of investing, I had gotten carried away with such classics as the 'The Intelligent investor' by Benjamin Graham and held onto its views for most of these years only to see very little profits - it didn't work for me at least. Switching over to CANSLIM'ing (read William O' Neal's books in this regard, click on all my review against my name to see my review on one of his books) and further coming across this gem from Stan Weinstein's has helped me be ahead of the averages this year. Moreover, with these books my decision making has matured and I have seen real profits. The emotions in investing are going away and that is a tremendous progress for an amateur.

Don't even think twice about whether to add this to your library. Just buy it. If you are a serious investor/trader, this book is worth its weight in gold!

Out of the dozens of books I've read revolving around technical analysis this is still the one I recommend to people who show an interest in learning TA. I first read this book in 1989 and it's still as valid today as it was then.

Weinstein writes in a very accessible style. And he includes just the topics that are necessary to be successful with TA. No complex techniques that may or may not add anything to your trading results. Just the solid and steady core techniques that will let you pick out profits from the trend. Any techniques I've adopted since 1989 have just been additions to what I learned in this book, not replacements.

This book is more for the position trader than the swing trader. It's all about riding Stage 1 (stock going up) and Stage 4 (shorting or avoiding stock going down). If you've read Nicholas Darvas' How I Made $2,000,000 In The Stock Market you'll notice that Darvas basically stumbled on some of the core principles that Weinstein describes.

This book really doesn't have any secrets. It's just that Weinstein kind of follows the 80/20 rule. 20% of TA techniques give you 80% of the profit. Most other books confuse people by jamming in the other 80% that only gives you 20% extra and losing the core principles in the process. With Weistein the core principles stick out like a sore thumb.

The skinny: This is a purely TA 'top-down' trend-following breakout system presented. Explained below..


This book is fairily basic and as such will be especially useful to those new to the 'game.' While it will be tedious for experienced market participants to brush through explainations of what a moving average is, etc--I believe we can all learn something from the straight-forward TA employed by Stan Weinstein. For example, you wont see Elliot Wave defended or charts with pitchforks drawn on them--but rather a focus on moving averages (the simple logic being that MAs cut through volatility to give a better idea of the trend,) a top-down approach (i.e. Market --> Industry Group --> Security,) etc.

While I hold less faith than Stan in breakout systems, it's presented here in a easy to understand manner with examples and answers to test how well you are following his instruction. This man is a good teacher, and reminds me of William O'Neil in the way he gets his ideas across.

Particularily useful--at least for me--were his half-dozen or so favorite indicators he gave for guessing the future trend of stock markets.

Stan also gives his view on when to take profit on an equity you own, when and how to cut losses, and position sizing: i.e., the other 3/4 of your investing success.

I don't pretend to know a lot--but from what I've seen in my short experience, there is a lot of nonsense and questionable ideas used by some people under the TA banner, but Stan focuses on the simple, logical, common sense anaylsis. Being sophisticated--rather than demanding common sense--in many things in life including TA I believe causes more trouble than good; people want to believe they can figure something out and often vainly connect sophistry with (investor) wisdom.