Streetsmart Guide to Timing the Stock Market: When to Buy, Sell and Sell Short [Hardcover]

Colin Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Series: Streetsmart Guides | Publication Date: June 28, 1999

Most investors have been led to believe that stock market behavior is random and cannot be timed. Nothing could be further from the truth! Futures markets have been successfully timed by traders since the mid 1800s, and today's stock markets exhibit amazingly similar, recognizable trending patterns. Investors who understand and spot those patterns can—with a minimum of trades—double, triple, or even quadruple their long-term returns!

THE STREETSMART GUIDE TO TIMING THE STOCK MARKET explains for all investors how basic technical tools—well-known and popular in the futures market—can show you how to make the most of stock market opportunities. Using key indicators from the futures market, leading futures trader and advisor Colin Alexander has developed an innovative decision-making system for determining which stocks to buy and how to recognize when those stocks are poised for an upward move.

Case studies for market leaders, including IBM, Citicorp, Schlumberger, and others, demonstrate the book's techniques in action, and show the value of technical analysis in predicting stock movements. This groundbreaking system, similar to work done by John Murphy, Richard Dennis, and other legendary futures traders, will show you how to: Buy only those stocks most likely to have above-average performance; Run your profits and cut your losses; Sell when either the stock or the market is running out of steam; Monitor the risks—as you let the rewards take care of themselves; Take personal responsibility for your investments. That last point bears repeating. You wouldn't for one second think of driving a car without oil or going sailing without checking the weather. Yet that is precisely what the proponents of buy-and-hold would have you do: buy a stock or a mutual fund and hold it forever, ignoring cycles and trends which, quite frankly, could be understood and acted upon with a minimum of research.

THE STREETSMART GUIDE TO TIMING THE STOCK MARKET shows you how to conduct that research, and profit from the stock market's cycles and long-term trends. Whether you use its techniques to buy high-tech stocks or blue chips, you will effectively take control of your investments. Market timing secrets learned in THE STREETSMART GUIDE TO TIMING THE STOCK MARKET will give you renewed confidence and optimism. This breakthrough book makes advanced market timing techniques understandable—and makes it possible for you to achieve long-term returns superior to those of indexing, mutual funds, or buy-and-hold strategies.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Use time-honored futures trading techniques to find the big winners! And stay with them!

Risk-conscious futures traders wouldn't think of trading without using timing techniques. Yet many otherwise savvy stock market professionals reject or ignore timing, either for individual stocks or for the market in general­­mainly because they don't understand timing or because they don't know how to use it.

The Streetsmart Guide to Timing the Stock Market is the first book to bring to the stock market the timing techniques used by generations of futures traders around the world. This groundbreaking book is based on strategies proven through state-of-the-art computer testing to be profitable in all North American financial futures markets, including stock index futures. It demonstrates:

• Step-by-step instructions for identifying the best stocks to buy and the time to buy them
• When to let profits run (but not give back all your profits) and when to cut losses short
• Strategies for the long term that avoid the disaster of riding a bear market to the bottom
• How to sell a stock short in a bear market

About the Author

Colin Alexander is the publisher of The Five Star Bulletin, a popular advisory service for futures traders. Since 1996, his service has consistently been rated in the top ten by Commodity Traders Consumers Report. In 1998 he launched Stocktimer, a successful advisory service for buying stocks and selling stocks short. Mr. Alexander is author of several trading books, including Capturing Full-Trend Profits in the Commodity Futures Markets and the widely acclaimed Five Star Futures Trades.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (June 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071346503
• ISBN-13: 978-0071346504
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,665,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book for the Stock Market System Builder, August 8, 1999

By 

James Lor "James Lor" (Montreal, CANADA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Streetsmart Guide to Timing the Stock Market: When to Buy, Sell and Sell Short (Hardcover)

Many of the technical analysis books only show you the patterns, they don't go deep enough into what you should do when you see those patterns. This book tells you what you should do and gives you case studies. If you want to build a system for trading stocks, this book should be in your library.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good and practical book on Technical Analysis, January 29, 2000

By 

Gavin S. Lawson (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Streetsmart Guide to Timing the Stock Market: When to Buy, Sell and Sell Short (Hardcover)

As good a book as you will read on Technical Analysis as it relates to the Stock Market. Very well written and edited with lots of charts demonstrating real case histories of the strategies employed. All the material was practically presented in a clear and logical manner. In short it was a an easy read which is good because you will want to return to it often to review key points of interest. Stresses the importance of looking at the markets from first the long term (months) to the intermediate term (weeks) and finally to time your trades using the short term (days). Well done and thanks.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RockRoys two thumbs up. Always picking it up again..., January 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Streetsmart Guide to Timing the Stock Market: When to Buy, Sell and Sell Short (Hardcover)

This book has an exellent balance between TA and prescriptive action. It's not enought to be able to read a chart, you have to know when to act and what action to take given what the chart is telling you. This is not the very best book on TA, it is the very best marriage of TA and practical advice as to what to do with the TA. For example. Both for long and short positions he has a long check list you should make copies of and go through for each stock you take a position on. Further, he has three excellent case studies on buying into an established trend, buying a long term breakout, and buying into a repidly moving market. His 6 chapters on Selling Short are the only reference materials I could find when researching a book on shorting, still in print, of any substance. Again there is a checklist and case studies. Finally, his two chapters on Market Myths should be posted above every online investor's computer.

As a long-time avocate of investing on both the short and long side of the market I love the symetrical thinking throughout this book. There is just no way you will become a good investor unless you adopt this symetrical view because as every investor must realize by now, the market doesn't just go up, it goes up 2/3'rds of the time, and down 1/3rd of the time at twice the rate. It's a pitty this book is so little known. If you are on the perverbial desert island, this is the investment book you want. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of TA look at the Bible, Technical Analysis of Stock Trends 7th Edition by Edwards and Magee. ISBN 0-8144-0373-5. Mere mortals should prefer Alexander's book. Best of trades!

RocketRoys