BAR BY BAR -- Al Brooks

[NoDoji]

Quote from failed_trad3r:

All price action books make no sense. as price action traders create their own illusions and give them names. never any P/L statements, so you don't know if it works. logically, it it works it would be easy to generate P/L statements and say, look price action works.

Logically, if I developed a set of rules for trade entries, protective stops and profit targets, and I can take any price chart in my time frame and apply those rules to the chart, day after day, for months on end, through bull runs and bear runs, through trend days and choppy range days, and the result is net profitability every single day, does it work?

There are at least six ET members who know my core beginner's rules for price action trading, and can verify that it works, over and over again, day after day.

Whether a trader can follow the rules and profit is a whole other story. However, if a trader can follow the rules without exception, s/he will profit.

Al Brooks outlined a myriad of price action trading setups in his book. These are high probability setups with rules for risk management, and ideas for profit targets.

Whether he personally trades these setups, and whether he follows his rules for trade management while trading is irrelevant to me. Therefore, his P/L is irrelevant to me.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from Gabfly1:

My remark was meant as a joke because of the apparent inconsistency in her post as I had quoted it. I say "apparent" because I think I actually understand what she meant to say, but I chose to look at it slightly out of context for comical effect.

Hey, I like totally got that, ya know, and I'm blonde, too

Before this Mother goes and has her Day, one final analogy regarding those who provide trading education and whether or not they're profitable traders:

If I pay $50 for a big box of high quality tools worth $1000 which will allow me to generate large profits because I can now complete projects in a fraction of the time it took me before, and the person who sold me the box of tools has no idea how to use them, does that make the tools any less valuable?

 

[ammo]

good analogy and happy md

 

[Gabfly1]

Quote from NoDoji:

Hey, I like totally got that, ya know, and I'm blonde, too

Before this Mother goes and has her Day, one final analogy regarding those who provide trading education and whether or not they're profitable traders:

If I pay $50 for a big box of high quality tools worth $1000 which will allow me to generate large profits because I can now complete projects in a fraction of the time it took me before, and the person who sold me the box of tools has no idea how to use them, does that make the tools any less valuable?

If you benefited from Brooks's book then that's all that really matters. But here's the thing I didn't like about what I read in his book before I returned it to Amazon for a refund. Aside from it being written in non-English, I am skeptical of books that teach discretionary trading. To borrow from your analogy, if a box has too many tools, some of which can actually conflict with others, then it becomes too easy for the author to construct evidence after the fact to support either taking a profitable setup or passing on what would result in a losing trade. It's just too easy to play with the many variables and to tweak them after the fact, along with the occasional and necessary sprinkling of losing setups to give it a veneer of credibility.

I'm not saying Brooks necessarily did that, but it's just too easy do so for people so inclined. Further, I'm not a big fan of large tool boxes, anyway. Too many tools to choose from diminishes response time in my opinion, and that can weigh heavily in shorter time frames. I have no doubt that there are successful discretionary traders. However, I regard truly discretionary trading as being that much closer to "art" than relatively more systematic trading. And I'm not convinced that art can actually be taught.

 

[newtoet]

Quote from mxjones:

I am not saying the content of this book is bad, but I am saying the writing is terrible. Al uses 30 words when only 5 are called for, and it needs to be organized in a more coherent manner. He talks about stuff in early chapters that he doesn't explain until later chapters, and it takes a lot of work to figure out WTF.

You would think his publisher would have paired him with a capable editor, but it appears not. You need to spend a lot of time with this book, but not because it is complex or "for seasoned traders"....because it is convoluted and you have to work to figure out the point he is trying to make.

+1. Whether or not this book has decent content will remain a mystery for most. The publisher should be taken out and shot, and Brooks needs to work on his presentation skills if he wants to teach others. My advice - don't waste your time.

 

[failed_trad3r]

Quote from NoDoji:

Logically, if I developed a set of rules for trade entries, protective stops and profit targets, and I can take any price chart in my time frame and apply those rules to the chart, day after day, for months on end, through bull runs and bear runs, through trend days and choppy range days, and the result is net profitability every single day, does it work?

There are at least six ET members who know my core beginner's rules for price action trading, and can verify that it works, over and over again, day after day.

Whether a trader can follow the rules and profit is a whole other story. However, if a trader can follow the rules without exception, s/he will profit.

Al Brooks outlined a myriad of price action trading setups in his book. These are high probability setups with rules for risk management, and ideas for profit targets.

Whether he personally trades these setups, and whether he follows his rules for trade management while trading is irrelevant to me. Therefore, his P/L is irrelevant to me.

defining setups as high probability without testing if it is high probability because there's no P/L is the epitome of

head and shoulders is high probability cuz i say so

 

[dejavu8]

Quote from newtoet:

My advice - don't waste your time.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1881170

 

[tenpercent]

Can the ideas of price action in Al's book be applied to swing trading daily bars or are they for intraday use only?

 

[Swan Noir]

I have a friend that spent 15 years teaching art at Harvard and has been a successful artist in her own right. Think about what you are not convinced of. It is talent that can not be taught. Technique, which is relevant in all we master, can clearly be taught. And, except for the very small percentage born with with the true genius of a natural, it is invariably taught.

Those that learn generally have found resources to learn from. Those resources were invariably constructed by people. While most who profess to teach trading are charlatans, there are many of us who have confidence that we can tell the difference between a charlatan and a bad writer who has not yet discovered the value of a competent editor. Yes, I waste the occasional $50 on a book that has no meaning because I never forget that years ago I read 40 books on advertising before I found one book -- Ogilvy on Advertising -- that allowed me to triple my gross business in four months and take my bottom line up over 500%.

I just don't get that people can accept that every trade can't be a winner yet think it is a big deal if every book they read is not of high value. Some of them are worthless pieces of crap yet can be spotted by a review of the table of contents. Some get by the screen and end up being a waste of time and money. And some contain a single piece of new information (at least new to me) that is worth hundreds of times what I paid for the book.

Why would someone without the slightest interest or belief in discretionary trading buy a book that is clearly designed for discretionary traders?

Quote from Gabfly1:

And I'm not convinced that art can actually be taught.

 

[traderslair]

Quote from Swan Noir:
I never forget that years ago I read 40 books on advertising before I found one book -- Ogilvy on Advertising -- that allowed me to triple my gross business in four months and take my bottom line up over 500%.

I don't think that Ogilvy was a very good choice, have you heave read in the back of the book '13 predictions for the future' ?

Like NONE of them turned out to be correct, NONE !!!