Customer Reviews

Technical Analysis Plain & Simple: Charting the Markets in Your Language

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have most of the popular TA books, but I saw this at a local store and bought it for a friend -- she doesn't have it yet. It's well written (as one would expect from a Brit.) and has more breadth than depth, as a primer should. You'll need other books of course, but this is the best introduction that I have encountered. One of its greatest virtues is that it does not dwell on technical indicators -- no real TA trader does. (Note that this is the exact opposite of "TA from A-Z", a book that's a terrible introductry text.)

Some of the topics covered are:

Charts, Trends, Patterns

Risk/Reward Setups

Intermarket Analysis

Candlesticks

Technical Indicators

Example Trades: Entries/Exits

In this book Michael Kahn clearly explains the practical aspects of technical analysis. I was very impressed by the author's strong financial background, and by his ability to explain technical information in a straightforward understandable way. I found myself looking back at previous successful and unsuccessful trades that I have made, and understanding the reasons behind the outcome. This book taught me principles that I can apply in the market immediately. I highly recommend it.

I was recommended to read this book during my induction period at a major investment bank. I studied Law at University so I had no idea what Technical Analysis was, until I read this astoundingly simple yet powerful book. Resistance & Support Levels are explained in a way that you will never forget the rationale for them after having read his chapter. This book has saved me from major embarassment in the markets!

I'll keep this review short.This book is a pretty good introduction to classical techinical analysis (i.e,charting).If you believe in charting (or TA for that matter) as a forecasting tool then this book will be a good enough introduction for the novice.The book is very scant on the technical indicator side of TA and I disagree strongly with the remark made by the reviewer from New York,USA who states that "no real TA trader" uses indicators in trading decisions - from working on various trading desks in several of the largest investment banks in the world and from meeting scores of other traders - this guy is talking baloney.Some of the most profitable trading systems I've seen (ROI never less than triple digit percentages) are purely based on a mixture of advanced technical indicators and proprietary algorithms: there is no classical charting involved whatsoever.People who shun technical indicators are usually those who can just about cope with high school level maths.Moreover anyone who profits from classical TA,i.e, charting - and this is going to seem contentious - is I'm afraid guessing more times correctly than he is incorrectly.In fact there are circles in the professional trading community who genuinely believe that all classical TA is doomed for failure especially with todays fast electronic information systems.The only type of so-called "charting" that can be shown to work is that based on chaos theory ... So, for a novice - go read it as there's no harm done but don't expect to make consistent money using the ideas contained within or even with more 'advanced' classical TA books.

Since technical analysis is mainly about reading stock charts, I'm always amazed when a book meant to teach it is heavy on words and light on charts. This book is far too wordy and not "charty" enough. When explaining a concept, the author generally gives one example chart and a lot of words about the chart, rather than giving more examples so that the reader can get a feel for what it being explained. This makes it a very inefficient tool for learning technical analysis, and you may feel you could have used your time better with some other book.

A problem for stock and options traders is that the charts and explanations are more oriented toward indexes, orange juice futures, cocoa futures, etc., so it doesn't give much information directly applied to stocks.

This is a kindergarten TA book; that is, if one is just entering personal investing, it gives the basics, but for experienced TA investors it's not worth the price.