Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar - Al Brooks

There were some comments about Al's book in another thread so I thought I would add my own 2 cents.

On the downside, the book is poorly written and badly organized, that means you will need to spend more time than should be necessary to learn everything. He has his own name for everything and the terms are not in common usage and he starts using them from the beginning before explaining what they mean so you have to flip back and forth between the glossary and the text.

On the upside there is a lot of useful info that I have never seen all in one place before.

He uses one MA for S/R and to gauge trend strength, trend lines and channel lines for S/R but mostly he uses Price Action.

He gives many insights into how the various market participants behave and how to exploit that knowledge.

There is a free forum where he posts the S&P emini 5 min chart at the EOD with his comments. You might be able to read all the info on the forum site along with all his past comments and learn everything without buying the book.

There is a free forum where he posts the S&P emini 5 min chart at the EOD with his comments. You might be able to read all the info on the forum site along with all his past comments and learn everything without buying the book.

Where?

brookspriceaction.com

I agree, Book is badly organized, but there is valuable info.
I found a few things very useful,
1) the failed failure. 5min bar, good range higher, next bar smaller but with L higher than prior bar low (this is a potential beginning of a failure of the uptrend, next bar, Open>Open of revious bar, L>L of previous bar, if price pushes higher and exceeds highest of prior 2 bars, you have a failed failure (price failed to reverse)

2) the overshoot. In an uptrend (5 min and daily bars, too) draw trend line along the highs. Sometimes, price overshoots the uptrending line posting a rapid gain that sees price stretched abnormally above the uptrend line. Overbought, retrace likely, but what is more important is: price usually finds a bottom and then goes to at least retest price range of highest overshoot bar.
3) have patience in the 5min chart, if you see 3 or 4 good sized up bars, the first retracement will probably attract buyers, wait for a failure swing.

Here are a few links you might find useful. If you don't have a copy of the book yet, this will give you a sense of how it is written. It definitely is a convoluted, laborious, make-your-head-explode read (the editor ought to be taken out back and shot). But the 400+ paged book is pretty well stuffed with a LOT of fresh and very interesting, specific information on Price Action.

There are notes and pdf's out there which you could Google that would assist in understanding his material better. Last I checked, Amazon had it new for $47 bucks (list $75).

Here's an excerpt from the book publisher's (Wiley) site:

http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/52/04704439/0470443952.pdf

Google books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=GrDQYq-ChpUC&pg=PP1&dq=al+brooks+price+action&ei=LVP_Sb67EpPMNZn8xNkD#v=onepage&q=&f=false

But Al Brooks own site at www.brookspriceaction.com is really starting to fill up with good information and is a little confusing to navigate, but some good stuff if you dig around.

Also, here's a couple of links to online webinars

Trading the Best Price Action Setups: http://www.mypivots.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5011

A Month of Great Trades: http://inxpo.stream57.com/integration/StreamLine.aspx?a=b3e9s7aSr3x9SIM538M8

Hope this helps and you avoid a brain aneurysm.

HELP ... GUY or SOMEBODY. My prior post has an incorrect website link near the end. If you could change the webinar link of "Trading the Best Price Action Setups" to:

https://presentations.inxpo.com/Shows/Summit/summit-videos/summitmovie.wmv

I'd be much obliged!

I have been using his methods with 30min bars (ES, YM & some stocks), and 4 hour charts(Forex) the same way he does a 5min along with my normal RSI method and its been a nice add on. His book got me back to really watching whats going on right now, in this bar and how it relates to what has been happening.

I did an interview with Dr Al a few years ago. He's quite a nice fella and a good trader. The MP3 is still on line http://www.cfrn.net/2008/05/5-minutes-to-e-mini-fame-and-fortune.html You have to click the headline to launch the audio interview when the page loads. He shares some good stuff which I have integrated into my own trading. Unfortunately, a lot of what he offered was lost on me and kinda went over my head. I do plan to buy the book someday. I learned enough just from chatting with him to really turn around the way I viewed the market. So if I learned just a wee bit more from the book that would indeed be most excellent. Perhaps I'll invite him back on the show and he'll send me a complimentary copy.