mr padutrader
you have as much experience with brooks as anyone on et.
what's your take on this review from quora com?
Thx
https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-about-Al-Brooks
What do you think about Al Brooks?
1 Answer
Scott Phillips
Scott Phillips, I know things about price action
Answered Jul 13 2016 · Author has 2.7k answers and 12.3m answer views
Al Brooks is an ex medical doctor who is a “price action trader”, trading 5 minute charts of the ES futures (mainly). He has a very comprehensive and subjective method for “reading the tape”. He doesn’t use (and hates) indicators, except for sometimes a single moving average. He trades one market only, during NYSE hours only, and he switches off his phone, blacks the curtains, uses a small laptop with a single screen, and just does one thing.
Al is devoid of marketing bullshit, and in his droning boring way he delivers some hard truths about markets. He spouts such beautiful wisdom as “If I didn’t make money today, it is because I am not good enough.” He is completely honest about the level of commitment and time it takes to become a professional trader. He is not a scam in any way.
I’ve read all of his books, and bought his video course some years ago. Except for his first book which was indecipherably dense (and the material is better covered in his later books) his material is without exception excellent, though his video course is a little basic. He certainly influenced my ideas about price action and the nature of markets. He responded to my emails with pertinent questions quickly and comprehensively. I would recommend him as a legit trading guy (and there are very few of those) although I don’t trade using his methods.
That being said there are some issues. I met with some traders in Van Tharp’s “super trader” group in 2012, and there were two guys who had chosen to learn Al’s method and practice until they were good. Both said it was a difficult row to hoe nearly a year into their study. My opinion is that Al’s method is very suited to his personality and you probably need a close match with him to be able to trade it well.
A gross simplification of Al’s method is to firstly recognise if you are in a trading range or a trend. If you are in a range, you are supposed to BLSHS (buy low, sell high, and scalp). This means that you identify the low of the range and try for a quick trade to the upper part of the range. If it is trending you wait for 2-legged pullbacks (analogous to an abc correction in wave-speak) and buy, holding for a more substantial move. There are objective setups to take, which are similar to price action setups most traders will be familiar with, double tops, retests, pullbacks, inside bars, double and triple inside bars.
The positive of his method (and all tape reading methods) is that you get a deep understanding of the how and why of price moving around on a chart. The negative is that since methods like this are highly subjective your performance is basically down to how you feel on any given day. If you are grumpy, angry, hungry, tired, you are not going to perform well. You are the edge.
I have friends who trade similar methods and make money, it IS possible. However it is truly expert level stuff. In my opinion, it would take a talented and diligent trader a few years of hard work to become profitable using this method.
Imagine a spectrum of trading systems, on the left is pure mechanical systems, where you have no discretion, just objective instructions to carry out. On the right is pure discretionary systems, where you essentially trade your instincts within a framework and guidelines for managing trades. Beginner traders are magnetically attracted to methods which give them a lot of freedom to make decisions, which is not always best.
In my opinion beginner traders are better served with more simple, objective systems, while more advanced traders can branch out to more complicated systems with many subjective aspects.
Have a look at his youtube channel, it is excellent stuff
BrooksPriceAction
https://www.youtube.com/user/BrooksPriceAction
