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Rating: 
Summary: Crabel manages $2 Billion for a reason
Review: The book is basically a series of studies on reoccuring patterns in the stock and commodities markets. Crabel found that volatility is mean-reverting in the speculative markets. Just as night follows day, volatile markets follow quiet markets. There are more than a dozen robust volatility patterns evaluated and explained. The only real weakness I can see is that Crabel used point values instead of percentage values. This was a common mistake of professionals back in the early 1990's. You will need to convert these. For example, if the S&P 500 is currently meeting the criteria for one of the low-volatility "set ups" then place a buy stop 2.5 points above the open and a sell stop 2.5 points below the open. If filled set your mechanical stop-loss 1.5 points outside the current days existing range. Well, 2.5 points was a reasonable move back in 1991 (when the S&P was trading around 400). But 2.5 points is just noise today. To adjust simply divide 2.5 points by what-ever the S&P was trading at back in 1991 to get a percentage. Then multiply this percentage by today's S&P level (around 1000). This will result is something like 6.2 points. Do the same thing for your stop-loss as well. Crabel's logic was/is sound but the research in the book should have been based on percentage moves. These are what have held reasonably stable over time. Also, to be successful you will need to be able to track at least 75-100 stocks. Otherwise you will not get enough set-ups to maintain proper diversification. Volatile, liquid stocks obviously work best. A program like Neovest or Radarscreen (Tradestation) will be very helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book in 1990, but not unique anymore
Review: Well I bought this book in 1991, when I was just learning about technical trading. The ideas were mostly unique then, or at least had not been published together yet in one volume, from what I know. The main ideas in the book have to do with expansion and contraction in volatility and moves off the open (Opening Range
Breakouts). Toby is a successful hedge fund manager, having worked for Victor Niederhoffer before starting his own company. Toby's
returns are good, but his risk management is far better. Toby's funds have grown primarily due to his excellent risk management
skills as opposed to his returns. In layman's terms this means that he hardly ever loses money but he doesn't make much for his clients. This is actually fairly unique and he should be commended for finding this niche in the business. I should say that I do know both Toby and Victor, although they are just industry acquaintances, not friends, and I have not seen them in a many years. For young struggling traders, the ideas in this book are available cheaper in other books or on the internet. They are also known as volatility breakout strategies. I suggest you pay not more than $200 for this book. If you can't buy it for less
than that, look elsewhere. If you are a collector, than feel free to pay up for this
book.
Rating:
Summary: Unique and Innovative
Review: What the readers here say is true. I bought a used copy for about 1100 a few years back and was well worth it. An absolute tour-de-force of ideas and studies that are in use by Toby Crabel himself (he runs a hedge fund). The primary method he uses (ORB) is actually used by the majority of Hedge Funds today. I do reccomend that the reader check other auction sites for better deals.
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