Trading for a Living by Alexander Elder was the first book recommended to me by a professional trader. I gives a good overview of the whole subject of trading and technical analysis.
Once you learn about TA you can use TurTrades to test you skills. TurTrades allows you to step back in time and fast forward time to test your skills.
============= It can get better than tossing a coin; because not all coins are created equal, or of the same material. Its probabilities not prediction. Actually i like Jack Schwager's 3 Top trader books; theyre no substitute for experience, but still helpful. Wisdom is profitable to direct.
I'd probably go with: 1) Random Walk Down Wall Street: http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393315290 2) When Markets Collide: http://www.amazon.com/When-Markets-Collide-Investment-Strategies/dp/0071592814 3) Collaborative Statistics: http://www.amazon.com/Collaborative.../ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A2JEPUQV26074G You should observe the following rules: Try to spend as little time on trading per se as possible. Be an aggressive learner and by all means avoid both technical and fundamental analysis. Try to research the scientific component of trading which says the odds are stacked against you. Play oriental games like GO, Chess and others to sharpen your strategic senses, intuition and ability to be alert. Do not waste your time on rubbish, try to always remember that trading is first and foremost about trading 1 contract. Never trade your own money, and try to build a community around your trading. Consider establishing a brokerage franchise, whereby you would collect fixed commissions from relevant players, regardless of outcomes of their individual transactions. But buy all means comply with all applicable laws and regulations in the process. Do not advertise your successful trading strategies with others, try to focus on what works for you. Start the morning by a series of Oriental-style breaching exercises. Never look at charts and, if you trade at all, do it with a sense of detachment that Karl Schwaber writes about in his famous collection of interviews. Invest considerable effort into jogging, do so by forcing yourself to get up early every day and work out for a fixed period of time. Record your impressions of jogging in your diary, but never on a pc that is connected to the Internet. Modern means of communications enable more sophisticated players, such as special services to detect the contents of you personal computer, bypassing relevant anti-virus software and firewalls. Try to vary your sources of information. Balance US hype with European pessimism and you will learn that the stock market is largely a US creature. A society without a stock market, or with a stock market that plays a very minor role, is not only conceivable, it exists - in a number of places. German companies tend to rely on bank lending rather than stock issues, to attract financing. Properly position yourself in the food chain of the market jungle. Large institutional trading desks trade on close information, they're trading against you based on what they know, and on what you don't know and will find out in five years' time. Stay focused and diversify your personal growth/introspection/meditation options. HiddenAgenda
judging from the number of posts you have made, i assume you have some experience of trading. However, to blatantly say that TA has no worth is one of the most ignorant things ive heard in a while. Levels of resistance, support, fibonacci swings, patterns all have their value. And it is when the trader uses this information with his trading style then he stands a chance. But to say there is no value in these things really isnt helpful to the budding trader. I would encourage everyone to become familiar with all the patterns, sure they dont all pan out, but they can add weight when confirmed with other factors. The more reasons you can find to take a trade the higher the probability it has of panning out for you. In order to find these reasons you must be educated in what to see and how to read price action.
I've noticed that most people that try to discredit TA are people think that TA is used to predict the markets. I use TA to identify trends and ride them until the wheels fall off. No form of analysis can predict the markets.