how to understand Al Brooks

padutrader · Apr 24, 2018

truetype said:
Why follow / worship someone with no finance background, no track record and a Nostradamus writing style?
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INCIDENTLY that was the main reason for my attraction to him: a refreshingly simple,out of the box way of looking at the market.

And my trading benefitted

volpri · Apr 24, 2018

Frederick Foresight said:
I bought his first book soon after it came out. It was the first book I ever returned to Amazon. As far as I'm concerned, and quite apart from the horrible writing, it was fraught with hindsight bias. There were charts where he showed "winning" trades that had preceding price action that would have been losing trades by his own standards, had he bothered to point them out (which he did not). The discretionary nature of his trading allowed for a lot of narrative (fallacy). I only read the first hundred or so pages, but that was enough. With my Amazon refund came clarity.
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ROFLMAO

volpri · Apr 24, 2018

digitalnomad said:
God bless you and Al Brooks. Some of the worlds best traders use his methods, especially here on ET
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ROFLMAO

volpri · Apr 24, 2018

speedo said:
"Scientific merit" such as David Goodboy and Price Drivers?
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ROFLMAO

Sprout · Apr 24, 2018

truetype said:
With Al Brooks (Jack Hershey, Richard Wyckoff, WDGann...) it's a matter of religious belief, not scientific merit.
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Religion, science,... both start and end at the same place - making sense of non-sense.

Beware of the younger, quicker traders whom can figure out the work of all of the above,.... while juggling!

padutrader · Apr 25, 2018

comagnum said:
Al Brooks history is 10 years of losing than he turned into just another washed out day trader turned author/promoter of himself. He is crafty to only say he does not lose anymore, which is easy to do since he has not traded for a long time per those that investigated him.

https://www.valforex.com/2017/09/al-brooks-trading-review-another-idiotic-scam.html

If anything your doing good despite Al Brooks.

I watched some video clips trying to see what the appeal is for so many. This guy is a complete nobody in trading, he is a very good marketer/promoter.

Hmm - he does not use volume
Hmm - he does not look at higher time frames
Hmm - he thinks the market changes direction at 5 minute increments
Hmm - he does not plan his exit or profit target.
Hmm - he never mentions risk/trade mgmt, risk-to-reward, position sizing, etc.
Hmm - not a mention of the psychology of trading

AB follows 5 minute candles and uses a few trend lines, every candle is a new decision, he trades exactly like so many newbies do, trying to catch every tiny move, tiny winners & big losers, & over trading -HFTs will eat you alive trading like that - trade like that you make your broker rich, until you go bust.

Consult a doctor when your ill. Consult with a winning trader with a good track record to learn how to trade.
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your observations are all correct.
however he does say DO NOT SCALP but Swing. scalping is something he does to pass the time till his trade comes by.
but if the doctor does not make you better, FIND ANOTHER

Xela said:
I suspect that may depend on exactly what you mean by "on record".

If you mean named individuals with independently verifiable identities and trading records visible online, then the answer's "I don't know" ... but I'd suggest to you that their NDA's might preclude that from happening (as indeed my own would) - and I'd further suggest that you probably know this, too, really.

If you accept less formal criteria for being "on record", then the answer's certainly and clearly "yes", and many of them.

Since posting a little here, myself, intermittently, about Al Brooks, in other people's threads, over the last year or two, I've been contacted on at least three occasions (I think possibly four) by private message/thread by other institutional traders who are now-non-posting members here (for various different reasons), all of them sharing my perspectives and experiences of this subject and some of them warning me about the extraordinary prejudices and misinformation on display here about Al; I've had some very interesting conversations with many colleagues as a result, and I've even made at least a couple of interesting and welcome online friends/contacts because of it.

There are also many (I think some of them even with full names, and possibly "verifiable" if you can be bothered to) in the futures.io forum. And probably elsewhere, too.

But if all that doesn't satisfy you, then from your perspective the answer's probably "no".

I don't care much, either way, myself: at the end of the day, it doesn't really affect me what people say about his textbooks and teaching - my perspective is that no matter how anyone else maligns him, and no matter for what reasons, I'm one of the evidently substantial group of people who fortunately don't have to pay back to anyone the money we've made (originally, in my case, directly for my own accounts, and more recently indirectly in the form of the acquired skill-set that produces my salary and bonuses for trading OPM) by following his teaching.

I'll add that I think it's quite a good and healthy thing, in principle, in this industry, to have some skepticism about "vendors", and Al Brooks is now technically a "vendor", as well as a trader ... though obviously there's a world of difference between having written 3 or 4 textbooks which Wiley has published at about $50 each and is probably paying him a 12.5% royalty on the sales, and being a hype-driven, self-promoting con-man hard-selling trading courses for $3,000 or $5,000 or whatever image people conjure up when they think of "trading service vendors". For a wide range of reasons, in all subjects, some people write textbooks (fortunately for people like me, who needed to study them to be able to make a living). To me it seems self-evident that Al Brooks' teaching isn't anyone's "primary income". But that's just my perspective, as the saying goes.
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if you can make money using his teaching then it is good.

Al has helped me make better trades

themickey · Apr 25, 2018

traderGOD said:
your observations are all correct.
however he does say DO NOT SCALP but Swing. scalping is something he does to pass the time till his trade comes by.
but if the doctor does not make you better, FIND ANOTHER
if you can make money using his teaching then it is good.
Al has helped me make better trades
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You sound dodgy as well, 21 posts on ET, all heavily promoting Al Brooks.
What's this place coming to? Foreigners having a field day trying to scam?
Awaiting your petition to be announced.

padutrader · Apr 25, 2018

themickey said:
You sound dodgy as well, 21 posts on ET, all heavily promoting Al Brooks.
What's this place coming to? Foreigners having a field day trying to scam?
Awaiting your petition to be announced.
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let me qualify myself i started reading technical analysis in 1994 and i am widely read on the subject. Al is the only one I personally like.

the 21 posts you refer to, are in reply to other posts, and should not be taken in isolation.

i get nothing from Al for 'promoting' him except the satisfaction of making good trades

the videos i recommend you see are all free

fordewind · Apr 25, 2018

truetype said:
With Al Brooks (Jack Hershey, Richard Wyckoff, WDGann...) it's a matter of religious belief, not scientific merit.
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Disagree about Hershey.His 10 cases come not from religion.Implementation is another question.

themickey · Apr 25, 2018

traderGOD said:
let me qualify myself i started reading technical analysis in 1994 and i am widely read on the subject. Al is the only one I personally like.
the 21 posts you refer to, are in reply to other posts, and should not be taken in isolation.
i get nothing from Al for 'promoting' him except the satisfaction of making good trades
the videos i recommend you see are all free
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21 posts, you are the author & promoting this thread (which is ok), but calling yourself tradergod along with the heavy promotion, what comes next? An offer to sell a service into understanding?