When do I become enlightened in terms of price action trading?

Daily charts, get Tradestation or Multicharts and backtest everything. The backtest results are always better than reality but useful.
 
Saigyou_123 said:
This is going to be a confused and rambling post.

As I have mentioned in other posts, I am currently reading Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar.

When I first started reading this book, it was hard to read for more than 15 minutes at a time. At that time, it was very difficult to understand what Al Brooks was talking about.

Eventually, I got through the first three chapters by rereading difficult portions several times. When I got to the fourth chapter, I found that I could sit down for an hour at a time to read. At that point, I could more or less understand the literal meaning of what Al Brooks was saying, and follow along his comments about the illustrations. For me, it takes around an hour to get through between five to seven pages.

Now I am at chapter 9. There are 15 chapters in total. Based on the table of contents, I believe that, after chapter 9, most of the fundamental concepts of the book would have been taught. The remaining chapters seem to be about implementation and examples.

Looking back, I feel that I have learnt many new concepts. However, the details of those concepts remain hazy, and I fear that I will only have a superficial understanding of them, unless I go through the book a second time from beginning to end. Since there are around 400 pages, with a liberal estimate of 10 pages per hour, we are looking at around 40 hours for the review process. With a conservative estimate of 5 pages per hour (considering the need to take notes), we may be looking at another 80 hours for the review process. Maybe a third reading is required to have a real understanding of the book.

Maybe this book really is for the "serious trader".

I guess my question is - For those of you who have read the book, was there any point, when you suddenly became enlightened with regard to price action trading à la Al Brooks?

When I read Anna Coulling's A Complete Guide to Volume Price Analysis, as far as I remember the second reading was key. The concepts started to tie together and become clear. When do I reach this point with Al Brooks's book?

If you have experienced significant benefits from Al Brooks's books and videos, please share your experiences as well.

The other option I am looking at is to read Edwards and Magee after the first reading of Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar. It seems to me that much of Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar is built on the foundation laid by Edwards and Magee. It is my hope, therefore, that Edwards and Magee will produce a kind of synergy with Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar to deepen my understanding of price action.
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There are 81bars in RTH. Begin to log bar-by-bar. That will generate a daily record and clarify where your sticking points are. Charting and logging will create the insights you desire.

Brooks video series will support your effort.

Reading Edwards and Magee can give a good historical snapshot of how markets are changed as well as how they have stayed the same.

On ET, Volpri has a good trading journal from a Brooks perspective.
 
I would say hold off on re-reading the first book until you get through all three. I'm working my way through the series and book 2 is where things have been starting to click more. There is thankfully a lot of concept repetition, and then in book 2 more blanks start to get filled in; it felt like the first portion of book 2 was a good reinforcement of trend concepts in book 1.

For what it's worth, I've had the same experience while going through the written work. It's very dense and takes a long time to read through/fully understand. I can only get through about 30 or so pages at a time on a good day. Personally, I've found that it has been worth the effort so far (despite what you see people saying on ET).

I'd agree with Sprout on Volpri's journal. I'm still a new trader (been about a year now) but reading through Volpri's journal is what initially got me on a better trading path and interested in Brooks.
 
Al's scholarship on
price development and discovery is substantial but his writing is sub-par and he gets little editorial support form his publisher. The video course is much easier to negotiate if you want to study Al's work. The books make a lot more sense afterwards. But no matter who you study, it's important to spend considerable time simply watching price develop. What is the nature of a trend?, what is the nature of a trading range?, what does a developing wedge look like?, What does a reversal look like. To most amateur "traders" what appears to be a reversal is simple the beginning of a consolidation for the next move up or down.

Learn the basics of price development from AL or another quality source and begin to watch. Don't trade at first not even in Sim as you do not want to be emotionally involved with the outcome of any setup.....learn by focus but with detachment from outcome. The fog will lift over time with the considerable effort required but don't be in a hurry. It took most of us a long time for all the pieces to fall into place and for most it never does. There are no easy shortcuts to consistent profitability and most will not do what it takes...technically and/or behaviorally.
 
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