You see? That's why I love Alan's book! My convoluted mind was perfectly comfortable with his dense prose style. What I took that sentence to mean is this. If you see price bounce off of yesterday's high and that was also a fib retrace of the last big move on the daily chart and that price was also at the expected minimum daily range, then you are on solid ground to bet the direction of the reversal. Mind, I picked that quote more or less at random. His book is chockablock full of gems like that.
Well, I do not believe in fibs and I don't predict daily ranges, but is it not intuitive that the more things that line up that have meaning for you, the better? You and your associates are smart fellows. I'm quite confident that you guys knew this before Big Al overcomplicated it in print. What else you got?
"If you have to look, it isn't there." "Profit and discomfort stand side by side." "Avoid the open. They see you coming." "Know the price that violates the pattern." "True market wisdom comes only through personal trading experience."
Again, I appreciate the response. And it's hard to dispute the value of these observations. But are you seriously suggesting that you did not already know any of these nuggets before you read the book?
That was so long ago that I don't know what I knew or didn't know. Think to come of it, that's the case now. All I can say is that I wish I now had all the money I foolishly spent on trading books, most of which, to accurately quote John Nance Garner, "weren't worth a pitcher of warm piss." Of literally scores I bought and read, I only have 12 left on my shelf: Farley, Babcock, Achelis, Schabacker (2), Murphy, Graifer, Elder, Douglas (2), Hayden and Shimizu. The joy of each is that a rereading yields the pleasurable sensation that they taught me something true.
He still runs this site: http://www.hardrightedge.com/ and sells training that amplifies on his book. He used to pay me an annual honorarium not to recommend him, but that lapsed this year. So I'm back to ruining his rep with lavish praise.
Farley still trades from home every day. Farley writes for Cramer's outfit (TheStreet.com), going on 10 years. A good share of the criticism about the book's writing style is justified. I didn't ask to write it. McGraw Hill came to me in 1999 because they saw me at a trading show and wanted to cash in on the day trading craze. They were signing up everyone they could find. My only writing experience at that time was 2 years at the web site. I took off the 1st six months of 2000, missed the top and the 1st part of the crash, which probably saved me a ton of money. I turned in the manuscript on MS Word in July 2000 but, and this is the crazy part, they had no electronic editing at that time. They also had no editors because they signed up too many books. They farmed Master Swing Trader out to some schmuck in Iowa who did corrections in pencil. It was returned to me and I was supposed to erase what I didn't like and write new material, in pencil, in all the margins. I also couldnât add or delete any pages. The result, between my inexperience and the hideous editing process, was good ideas, expressed inside out and upside down. Now, how would you feel getting bitched at by strangers about something you did 11 years ago? That's how I feel. The book concepts are now common because the Net been around forever and everything has been repeated a thousand times. The only trading/TA web sites that existed when hardrightedge.com came on line was the old ET (Baron's trading course), Velez's Pristine and Avidtrader, which is the true predecessor of today's ET. There was practically nothing on Fibonacci back then, in books or online, except for DiNapoli and Robert Fischer's book, which was more about price shocks than retracements. Also, I didn't make up pattern cycles. They are the core of Stan Weinstein's book, written in the 1980s. The rest is a reinterpretation of Edwards/McGee. As for the ideas and concepts (not written style), your loss if you think theyâre bullshit. The market has a structure, price action works a certain way and, once you see âitâ, youâre changed for good. Like a religious experience or good acid. Itâs kept me in the market for 21 years now and I expect to be doing this in the nursing home to pay for my drugs. BTW The trading business is dead. It died with the flash crash. The gurus have lost 60-80% of their biz income because the common folks just said âfuck itâ. Maybe it comes back when the public reliquifies, maybe it doesnât. Trader/writers that donât make money in the market are in an absolute panic right now. And most wonât admit whatâs happening because then they draw attention to the house of cards.