Barros indeed got the last name wrong, it was Niederhoffer. How ironic for Sperandeo. He writes some great books, develops a solid reputation, and then gets sullied anyway because of some other guy with the same first name. Just goes to show that fame is an overrated waste of time.
My advice is forget about books, as has been said. What you might find helpful is coding some easylanguage scans (with Tradestation) to run over historical data with the criteria you choose. For example, as few weeks ago I was interested in validating for myself the various volatility patterns of the stock indices that are oft mentioned. The calmer noon hours, etc, etc. So I coded up a scan that would get the average cumulative ATR for each hour of the day for the NQ for one years worth of data. Here is what I found: hour1 = 1.57 hour2 = 3.49 hour3 = 11.09 hour4 = 10.13 hour5 = 10.63 hour6 = 13.20 hour7 = 24.34 hour8 = 46.89 hour9 = 120.75 hour10 = 167.26 hour11 = 116.17 hour12 = 94.95 hour13 = 98.63 hour14 = 127.96 hour15 = 130.25 hour16 = 33.62 hour17 = 12.70 hour18 = 7.16 hour19 = 3.24 hour20 = 2.18 hour21 = 2.39 hour22 = 1.91 hour23 = 0.24 hour24 = 1.51 No doubt it would be a bit trickier to code up a scan to find and categorize the sucsessful and failed chart patterns, but it probably could be done. It would at the very least be possible to use this idea to identify the dates of the patterns so that it is then easier to find them on the charts for futher analysis. Good luck.
One of the best books for intraday/short term patterns is "Day Trading With Short Term Price Patterns and Opening Range Breakouts" by Tony Cabrel. I think its out of print. You might find a copy at ebay. All of the patterns have historic data on number of trades, success etc...
Found 1 copy of Tony Cabrels' book at ebay...... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1544773862
The favorite pattern right now in my group is the Hole in Wall (gap down) combined with the bear hug (downtrending stock moving up to resistance) as a swing short trade for listed stocks. You wait until the day after the gap down to determine if the stock is a short. This has had a 70% success rate in the past four months.
Golden Arm, could you describe the Hole in the Wall pattern in more detail? And just a suggestion: maybe both Vics blew out? Sperandeo and Niederhoffer? I wouldn't be surprised
RFoulk There is a book called "The Ultimate Trading Guide" Most of the book entails the success or failure rates of traditional chart patterns and individual candlestick patterns. The author name is John Hill. Sterling
sunnyskies, I'm not sure if this is what was referred to as bear hug, or hole in the wall, but I assume they are the same. This set-up as well as a daily scan can be found at hard right edge @ this link...................http://www.hardrightedge.com/trader.htm ps not associated with them, just found lots of useful info here.