How Charts Can Help You in the Stock Market

Rating:
Summary: Exhaustive on chart patterns, but ............
Review: As a work in the year 1962, the author with his good writing skill and his lavish but clever use of charts and figures, deserves a salute from all who appreciate the power of TA.
However, though market psychology doesnt change, technology and the speed and means of information distribution do, leading to shorter business cycles and thus trends that confirmation of which through "visual only" chart patterns almost always come too late. The situation is even worse in that "traps" in trend following are so frequent in today's highly competitive market when power traders with the help of deteriatives fully exploit the stop loss orders of mass investors.

I dont mean to undermine the value of this book. I just wanna say that there are many alternatives that cover TA wider and deeper. This book can be a low cost reference book in chart patterns. It just cannot provide a compeat course on TA without the introduction of other tools like Fibonacci, Moving Average, MACD, Stochastics etc. Afterall, TA is just a tool for money making. There's no point not to take a more productive route to achieve the goal.

Rating:
Summary: Survives the test of time
Review: I can't believe this book was written over 40 years ago, even before the Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan! I guess it only goes to show that technical analysis is valid and does work. Many of the patterns shown in today's books also appear in this book. Trends, moving averages, support and resistance, head and shoulders, double tops and bottoms were all known concepts back then. Candlestick charting wasn't known (in North America) back then and seems to be the only thing missing from the book.

This book is a great introduction to technical analysis, well written, and a very good value for the cost. The book is still being printed and read four decades later is proof that the concepts are valid and worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Good Education
Review: If the current round of corporate accounting fraud hasn't awakened you up to the usefulness of charting, maybe this book will. After having tried a pure fundamental analysis approach in my investing for years, someone finally convinced me to look at charts, which I considered to be the same level as reading tea leaves -- au contraire. After spening the past two years studying technical analysis, I am happy to report that this is one of the better books on the subject, and inexpensive, too. This book, along with websites like TradingMarkets.com, will give you a fantastic basis in technical analysis.