Customer Reviews

The Technical Analysis Course

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

If this book doesn't provide the very clearest explanations of technical analysis that is out there, it certainly is a contender for the crown. Each chapter or lesson is followed by a quiz to ensure that you've picked up the key points.

Technical analysis is used by momentum investors (traders if you prefer) to increase their chances of making successful trades. Although some investors on the net would tell you that chart reading is akin to tea-leaf reading, they'd be wrong. I'm conservative enough to combine value investing with my trading, but trading alone can be very profitable to one who takes the time to learn about charts.

The book consists of nineteen lessons:

Lesson 1 - Definition of technical analysis and its basic principles.

Lesson 2 - Chart Construction -- the types of charts, charting services, personal computer software.

Lessons 3-5: Profitable Chart Patterns

Lessons 6-10: Key Analystical Tools

Lessons 11-13: Advanced Analysis. These are especially excellent chapters since they make the "advanced" topics very accessible.

Lessons 14 and 15: Alternative Charting Methods. The lesson on Japanese Candlestick Charting is outstanding.

Lessons 16 and 17: Overall market analysis.

Lessons 18 and 19: Putting It All Together.

An investment of thirty minutes a night for three weeks will repay the investor with more tools to bring to the table to improve his investing track record.

For those who scorn (i.e., do not understand) charts, let me just offer this. Technical analysis does not, of course, double as a crystal ball. But, it can provide a significant edge.

There can be no guarantees, but I believe that this book will pay you for its cost hundreds or thousands of times over. (It has certainly repaid me. But, you've got to read the book and you've got to pull the trigger on some trades.)

Good luck. Better still, read the book and use its information for your benefit instead of relying on luck, hunch, and the free advice that is worth only its price.

This should be your first book on Technical Analysis and a permanent reference in you library. After reading the other reviews, I only have one thing to say. This is a MUST read book if you want to trade based on Technical Analysis. Very concise, to the point explanations. No words are wasted. Very easy to read and will get you started in TA almost inmediately and with a solid base.

This book is obviously constructed as a brief introduction to a variety of components and theories of technical analysis of securities. Topics considered include basic principles and theory of technical analysis, basic chart construction, major reversal chart patterns, consolidation formations, gaps, trendlines and channels, support and resistance, moving averages and other topics. The material is in all cases succinct and to the point. At the end of the book is an extensive list of further reading materials, reinforcing that the text is beginning in nature and the author encourages further study. This text is an excellent way to start exploring the field of technical analysis of securities.

This book is for those who only want to learn the basic concepts of technical analysis. The types of charts and concepts used in technical analysis were all only briefly described. You will need to learn a lot more about technical analysis than what is in this book if you want to use it to buy and sell stocks successfully. Thus, this book is way overpriced for the information it provides.

The quality of the charts in the book is only fair and should have been better organized. Most of the time, the charts are at least two pages away from the text that explains them.

The book by Thomas Meyers was a great way to start someone out in the very difficult discipline of technical analysis. It is written in a simple laymans term that wets the appetite to learn more. The quizes at the end of each chapter reinforce the basic knowledge that you have read and each on builds on the other. This book is a primer that has guided me into learning more on the discipline. That is all it is. If you are expecting a complete book on the whole discipline you will be disappointed. We first have to crawl before we can walk and this is a great coach for that.

Before reading this book, I was clueless about technical analysis! Now, i've learned many different indicatorts I can use in picking my stocks! Perfect reference book, and great for getting started! I recommend this to anyone who wants to get into the technical side of stocks!

This book is a great place to start if you know nothing about technical analysis. It is very well organized, and the quizzes help to reinforce the lessons of the text. Meyers starts with basic chart construction and the types of charts, moves through reversal and consolidation patterns, gaps, trendlines and channels, and support and resistance before taking on any computed indicators. Next he moves through moving averages, relative strength, and volume indicators, and finally oscillators. He then digresses to cover point-and-figure charting and candlesticks before concluding the book with a discussion of market and sentiment indicators. Once this material is mastered, the more detailed discussions of Murphy or Edwards and Magee will make a lot more sense.

I have read many books on the subject, and I'm not sure this author has a grasp of the concepts. It reads as though it was pasted together from magazine articles, and there is very little to tie the disparate thoughts together. The author seems confused, as there are frequent contradictions, more than once in the same chapter. If you are only going to read one book on this subject, pick one where the author has a command of the topic; this one will leave you as befuddled as the author.

This books seems to have been written to explain the stock market movements during the 1980s. There are a few theories to explain movement of NYSE big board stocks, and almost no coverage of NASDAQ. If you try to map these theories to the NASDAQ-fueled boom ending in 2000 or the slump since then, the author's weakly defined premises break down entirely. This book would have been useful in 1982, but I need to trade in the 2003 market. No help here; in fact, much of it is counter-intuitive. I tested it with a sampling of 10 stocks over a three month period ending in early March 2003. Using the "methods" described in the book, one would have lost money on 9 out of the ten trades (whether long or short). These trades netted an average loss of 28%. The one winner gained 11%. I could not afford to stay with this book's technique's for very long. To be fair, I then tested the methods on 10 more stocks from 1999-2000, when the market was booming. Again, the author's methods failed. Seven losers, averaging 32% loss, two winners averaging a 17% gain, and one break even. Save yourself from market losses, and the loss of money wasted on this book.

This book was assigned reading for a college-level investing course; now I understand why the professor drives an old car and teaches this class instead of making money in the market. In all my years of schooling, I've never encountered something so poorly assembled. I have unearthed a few useful concepts, but they are largely buried in an pile of tired market cliches and chart after chart of dated 1980s investing patterns.

There are many other books on the topic (you can do a search on "technical analysis" right on this Amazon site) that are both current and accurate. I keep a lot of my textbooks after finishing a course, I find them to be useful references. This one will go immediately to the used section of the campus bookstore.