Every person's review is within their own context, and their context may not be aligned with yours, and so I think its important for me to lay out the context in which my review is laid upon.
Context:
1) I am a new trader. In fact at the time of this post I've yet to make a single trade, only paper trades.
2) I am enrolled in Timothy Sykes Trading Challenge Program. I had decided only to trade conditional to having a mentor as I believe trading through trial and error is a very expensive tuition. As such my review is based upon the extent of relativity the book is to Tim's strategy and rules.
3) This is the first book I've read related to Technical analysis.
4) The book was recommended to me through Tim's teachings, and to be honest much of the trading literature I read and will read will be of Tim's recommendation until a time later that I believe I can tweak my trading system better suited for me through books not recommended so.
Review:
Chapter 1 does entail much self-promotion so I'd recommend skipping and starting at sub-chapter 'What is in this book' unless your looking for other products/services he provides. He then leads into discussion on the historical background of Japanese candlesticks. I feel its necessary to read this prior to digging into the technicals in the remaining chapters. Why? Firstly you get a better understanding of why the indicators are called and conceptually so. Secondly the book can get a little boring at times so some imagination on how the historical context i.e. Japanese warfare is related to the candlestick indicators brings the reading to life.
Because I haven't read a trading book prior to this I find it important to read through the whole book, with the idea not to use it all but to be aware of the endless concepts and tools used in the trading industry, in fact one of Tim's instructors had mentioned to me that he hadn't gone past chapter 4 of the book, and yet his trading experience is rich alongside with his consistent net profits, but I strongly assume it is because prior to Steve's book he had already been aware of much of what had been said, or perhaps so it as no importance.
As such the strength of each chapter is high but their weighting 'importance' vary. I think Part 1: Basics is important as it discuss all the candlestick indicators. Leading up to part 2, this is where am selective as part 2 is a convergence of eastern and western technicals, again because am under a guru's rules I think Chapter 10, 11, 15 and 16 are important to use, the remainder chapters in Part 2 are just 'good-to-know'. But even though the other chapters discussing western technicals are good to know, I think the way he describes them are clear and understandable. I've moved onto reading another book on technical analysis with more of an emphasis on western technicals and I find Steve Nison's book has given me a good foundation, that a large minority of the text is repetitive of what Steve highlighted.
Conclusively after reading Steve's book I feel my analysis and pace thereof is quicker and more precise as to assessing charts, as such a must read.
This review is the subjective opinion of an Investimonials member and not of Investimonials LLC
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