mpups
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If your destination is north, would you take a bus that is heading north or one that is heading south? The concept of buying high and being able to sell higher is consistent with the theme of "the trend is your friend". It is the underlying concept behind all trend trading strategy including Donchian channel breakout, Turtle trading, et al. Unfortunately buying strength or selling weakness is psychologically very difficult if you don't understand the nature of trends and how to position your trade location. In trading, your overall strategy only works well in the long run if it caters to both entry and exit. It is no point buying strength when you don't know when to get out because all trends end eventually. In professional trading, you will often hear the theme "buy wholesale and sell retail". Translated it means buy accumulation and sell distribution. Trends typically end in a number of ways including :
1)via exhaustion;
2)via a false breakout;
3)via distribution e.g. three drives
Being able to apply the concepts in trading will take years. There is no short cut.
Quantt
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"Summary
Al Brooks is a charlatan. No track record. Claims to be a “full-time professional day trader”, yet can provide absolutely zero proof. Trading books are highly subjective, unscientific mumbo jumbo with no backtesting of trading concepts.
Live trading room is an exhibition of palm reading, fortune cookie wisdom, crystal ball divination, modernist voodoo, cult leader fanaticism, and Harry Potter magical thinking.
A specialist of “double-speak”, where the left ear hears the trample of bulls, while the right ear simultaneously hears the mauling from bears.
A circle jerk, waste-of-time carnival attraction meant to sucker the newbie into believing that an actual wizard is behind the curtain."
https://www.tradingschools.org/reviews/al-brooks-trading/
Okay thanks for the opinion do you have any suggestions of someone else or something else
Quantt
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Frankly, I don't think you'll find someone, all those people are making money from selling the dream and do not trade... And the problem is not the few thousand quid you'll lose for on the scam, but they will teach you the wrong stuff and you'll lose much more in the market + the time to "unlearn" the BS...
The best is get yourself some data and start testing any ideas you can find for FREE, all of them will fail, but you'll get a "feel" for the market and hopefully you'll start having your own ideas and find an edge sooner or later... unfortunately there are no shortcrust like books or education...
Respectfully, I do not agree philosophically two themes you touched on. Firstly I do not subscribe to the route of self learning by observation through trial and error. In the advancement of knowledge, evidence supports the building block approach in that we progress including through the efforts of others. Self reliance is simply a retrograde approach to acquisition of knowledge, a point so intuitive obvious that it does not warrant further emphasis. In addition, that somehow what others have to offer are at worst inferior to our own efforts or at best inconsequential is an assumption that I think is ungrounded by fact or reason. There is no doubt there are plenty of scammers and caution is needed but exclusion of educators cannot simply be by lack of a verified trading track record, unlike if one is appointing a funds manager. Even on the latter point, there are plenty of ways scammers go around it.
Secondly, what is "free" is not necessarily the best value if one accounts for opportunity cost such as "time". There is a cost of doing business, and is no different with trading.
Having said the above, I think it is only constructive if we are able to assist the OP in addressing the original question and that is relating to the teachings of Al Brooks. I suspect you don't have an understanding of what Brooks teaches and his approach to trading because you are relying on an opinion of someone who has expressed an opinion through the internet. if I am wrong on this point I apologise. I know what Brooks teaches as I have read all his 4 books and sat through hours of his Price action video training course. Do I trade like what Brooks teaches - clearly no. There are components of what he teaches that become pieces of my own approach and so are elements from many others that I have learned from. We build upon the knowledge of others. Brooks' writing style may be difficult to comprehend and his videos can help in solving insomnia but is his offering useful - that is the question and not whether he can offer a verified trade record.
I respect your opinion and what you generally post but in this instance I would disagree.
Quantt
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We agree to disagree in the pursuit of the truth and the funny discussions
For the books, I have read a lot of books and I am yet to find a book with a detailed trading strategy that still works, maybe I am reading the wrong book, but if you can point me to a book with clear strategy, I would gladly buy it and we can discuss it here...
For Al Brooks, I would not trust an "educator" unless he proves me that he actually trades his own trading strategy every day and for more that one market cycle, because a strategy might work well in short term, but lose everything very fast, numerous examples like Long-Term Capital Management (and they were Nobel prize winners)...
If he is not trading his own strategy, to me, he is just selling the dream and other BS and making money from the newbies, while teaching them the wrong stuff deliberately...
Can you recommend some books, teachers, videos, anything useful I can use because I just started learning and I'm trying to find someone or something reliable to learn from .
There are a few books that I have read that offers value :
1)Reading Price Bar by Bar by Al Brooks
This book is about price action, trends, ranges and reversals
2)Mechanical Trading Systems by Richard Weissman
This book focuses on technical analysis, common technical indicators, back testing trends, reversions, scalps, et al, systems development, and risk management
3)The Universal Principles of successful trading by Brent Penfold
This book describes the pitfalls of trading, the process of trading and the core principles of trading
4)Naked forex by Alex Nekritin and Walter Peters
This book talks about the death cycle in trading, patterns, the psychology in trading and managing risk
5)Phantom of the pits, author unknown
You can google and download for free
This book principally talks about two core principles in trading : cutting losses and letting profits run
Nice try but you are attempting to reframe the terms of the conversation that I did not advocate.We agree to disagree in the pursuit of the truth and the funny discussions
For the books, I have read a lot of books and I am yet to find a book with a detailed trading strategy that still works, maybe I am reading the wrong book, but if you can point me to a book with clear strategy, I would gladly buy it and we can discuss it here...
Interesting that you would used LTCM as an example because it affirms the weakness of every modelling i.e. it is only as good as the assumptions used regardless of the scope of any testing.
As for Al Brooks, I am sharing my experience in terms of what I consider to be a useful source of learning based on a question raised by the OP. You are clearly entitled to your general opinion about educators and I have no intention of defending Al Brooks beyond my personal experience.
Do you have any evidence to make such a statement that Al Brooks is "teaching them the wrong stuff deliberately."?
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barjon
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Phantom of the Pits is probably the best trading book I have read. You can pick it up as a word document from a 2004 post on here http://www.trade2win.com/boards/psy...phantom-pits-something-weekend.html#post89586
Enjoy and take particular note of rule 1
This was the forum where I came across the book initially. A very good book especially on rule number 1.
Quantt
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LTCM was an example that even smartest people make mistakes, in their case the leverage was the killer... As one of my high school friends used to say:
"There are three ways to go broke: "ladies, liquor and leverage""
Al Brooks: long time ago, I have read his book "Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar" and it is complete BS. Here is the evidence that he is not trading right from his website and the reason that he is not trading, is because he knows that hi is teaching BS to his "customers"
"Any mention of trades in financial instruments should be assumed to be hypothetical."
With all your knowledge about Al Brooks, are you using his $99 a month service and if yes, are you making money with it (this is the bottom line isn't it?) and would you recommend it to the OP and if you are not using it and not recommend it, why not?
Nice try again in an attempt to change the nature of the conversation. The conversation isn't about Al Brooks per se but an approach to learning. AL Brooks was simply a conduit to the conversation.
I have already outlined the two reasons why I disagree with your philosophical approach. Your response was merely that you disagree. You have not offer any undercutters or defeaters. I am happy to engage in a intellectual debate over that but not some retarded conversation over Al Brooks.
The OP's original question was about buying strength as a trading approach as mentioned by Al Brooks. Your comeback was don't listen to Al Brooks. When the OP asked what then? Your reply was just backtest until you get it. The problem in my view is that this OP is relatively new to trading and therefore totally ignorant in many things. It is like a driver who is looking for direction and your reply is try everty route until you get there. I think it is rather unhelpful to someone looking for spefific help and you provide your standard default answer - backtest.
Quantt
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OK, maybe I am not clear enough, so let me put out my advice to the OP in one post:
I do believe that all those "trading educators" do not actually trade, but are making money by selling the dream to the newbies, fully aware that their teachings are wrong and the result are the new trader is losing not only the money for the "training", but continue to lose in the market after that...
And the reason for this is that any widely used strategy will be arbitraged away by the money put into it, number of examples, like the turtles, etc...
My advice on how to find your edge is to start back testing any trading strategy/idea you can find for free (no point on paying for BS) and even tough all of them will fail, you'll start to get the feeling for the market and start to get your own ideas and sooner or later you'll find your edge...
This is my experience and this is what worked for me personally, before that I was losing money like any new trader until I realized it is all BS and I had to "unlearn" all that and started fresh with the back testing...
If Brumby can recommend a book that will cut out this time/back testing, I am always on the lookout for new ideas and will gladly read it, but before using it, I'll back test it all the way, as one of my high school friends used to say, "trust, but verify"...
For Al Brooks: no trading record, he claims it is against the law to show trading record, which is a lie, what is against the law is to show fake trading record... One book I have read is a BS with nothing concrete inside, so again my personal advice to the OP is stay away from this guy and do not waste your time...
Hope this helps.
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