I have been in Al's room on a trial basis for the last couple of days. He never says "I'm about to take this trade." He logically talks through the price action, and that's all he claims to do. He doesn't try to sell calls, and for all of you who are looking for that, it's not for you. He'll say stuff like "is this a good enough lower high for a top?" and then reason out why or why not. If you want to try I suggest you try a trial in his room and see for yourself instead of simply taking the words of others who make blanket statements. He has no air of "buy this" in his words at all. He talks about risk management, waiting for good setups, and taking high probability trades based on price action with no indicators, only a 20ema. I can't imagine any successful trader would consider those bad principles to trade with. For the poster who said that someone had developed an automated system based on Al's work, in response to that, Al doesn't have a "system" -- it's purely discretionary, and mechanical rules can't be applied to it. He repeatedly stresses that context is the key, and that blindly buying or selling based on high or low bars, for example, is a recipe for disaster. So if a system was developed and was not profitable, don't blame Al, because he doesn't have a "system" as far as I know.
He also does do one thing sneaky and that is he will say "Now here is a setup but I personally am not going to take this trade". He is actually giving a heads up on a trade that he can't call because of the restrictions placed upon him. He makes it your call whether you want to take the trade or not. He also has a "friend" who trades on the 3-min that he can call out trades on. These trades are usually in his after day trading analysis. I think the "friend" is actually "him" but he gets around the rules by using his "friend" as the trader instead of himself. Sly dog he is.
I just looked and he has 99 traders in his room at $99 a piece. So it's about 10k that the room is raking in monthly.
seems like a nice guy. My take: Frustrated former doctor looking to get some of the "market tuition" back that he paid staring at charts for 10+ years.
No so sure about that--at his summary he will say "I didn't take that trade" referring to previous trades that he said at the time he wouldn't take. He says things like "I would be looking to short here" and so forth, and a couple of times "that would be a good H1 long" or something to the effect.
what if more than half of 99 traders are in for trial basis? The fact is, u don't know. But, it doesn't matter. The fact is, Al brook is a 3rd party vendor and is not regulated by the gov. He can say and do whatever he wants. Expect to lose
I don't think he gets all of that. But my point mainly was even if he did make 120K a year off the website, thats clearly still a bad move to give up an ophthalmology career for a fickle subscription website without actually making the vast majority of your income from actual trading. So that adds to his credibility imo that he did give up a respectable career.
Either way, I can't imagine what the big deal is. Al is not a trade caller--he gives feedback on what HE sees in the price action only. He's not using a black box indicator, nothing secret, just talking about what the price is telling HIM. It's just him and his chart, no trading system package he's selling. I personally find the live commentary more valuable than reading it from a book, even if I happen to see things differently than he does at any given moment. It's not for me forever, just for a while until I develop a comfort level with reading pure price action by myself. And for $5 per trading day, it's really not that expensive. He doesn't do any ra-ra, pump-em-up, he's very methodical and calm, and takes a rational approach to trading. If the market is willing to pay for it, why wouldn't he take it?
Respectable in whose eyes, yours? Okay, but many have given up so-called respectable careers in search of something they enjoyed more. And how do you know he doesn't make the majority of his money from actual trading? -By the way, I'm not trying to defend Al Brooks because I know him personally or because I like him a lot--I just enjoy his take on reading charts, plain and simple, and he's not even here to defend himself while people make unsubstantiated claims. On another web site, I started a thread asking why a vendor would ever sell a system that made money for cheap (say, $500). The difference with Mr. Brooks is that he is not selling a system, but rather commentary on price action. It's discretionary, and can't be plugged in and traded like so many systems claim.
I dont think you understand what im saying. I DO think he makes the vast majority of his money from trading. What I'm saying is, if someone gives up ophthalmology to trade and they stuck with trading this long, I would have to assume they are making a lot of money.