This is going to be a confused and rambling post. As I have mentioned in other posts, I am currently reading Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar. When I first started reading this book, it was hard to read for more than 15 minutes at a time. At that time, it was very difficult to understand what Al Brooks was talking about. Eventually, I got through the first three chapters by rereading difficult portions several times. When I got to the fourth chapter, I found that I could sit down for an hour at a time to read. At that point, I could more or less understand the literal meaning of what Al Brooks was saying, and follow along his comments about the illustrations. For me, it takes around an hour to get through between five to seven pages. Now I am at chapter 9. There are 15 chapters in total. Based on the table of contents, I believe that, after chapter 9, most of the fundamental concepts of the book would have been taught. The remaining chapters seem to be about implementation and examples. Looking back, I feel that I have learnt many new concepts. However, the details of those concepts remain hazy, and I fear that I will only have a superficial understanding of them, unless I go through the book a second time from beginning to end. Since there are around 400 pages, with a liberal estimate of 10 pages per hour, we are looking at around 40 hours for the review process. With a conservative estimate of 5 pages per hour (considering the need to take notes), we may be looking at another 80 hours for the review process. Maybe a third reading is required to have a real understanding of the book. Maybe this book really is for the "serious trader". I guess my question is - For those of you who have read the book, was there any point, when you suddenly became enlightened with regard to price action trading à la Al Brooks? When I read Anna Coulling's A Complete Guide to Volume Price Analysis, as far as I remember the second reading was key. The concepts started to tie together and become clear. When do I reach this point with Al Brooks's book? If you have experienced significant benefits from Al Brooks's books and videos, please share your experiences as well. The other option I am looking at is to read Edwards and Magee after the first reading of Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar. It seems to me that much of Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar is built on the foundation laid by Edwards and Magee. It is my hope, therefore, that Edwards and Magee will produce a kind of synergy with Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar to deepen my understanding of price action.
You become enlightened when you stop wishing the chart is what you want to see and you instead you see what is actually happening. It's like getting a sense of clarity.
There is no chart patterns that mean anything bit I do believe in price action. Like places were everyone piles into one side of the trade for example long and then everyone gets caught short. It's you vs everyone or in better words. You vs the market.
Stop reading books, start reading charts. Look at 30 second charts, look at 5 minute charts, look at daily charts, look at weekly charts, they all behave the same.
But surely you must believe in chart patterns in some form or another? Otherwise, how would you decide to get into a trade or not?
I look at charts from time to time, too. After experiencing considerable difficulties in the market, I decided that I needed to find out how other people look at charts. That being said, when you say look at charts, do you mean live charts only, or do you look at historical charts as well? Do you believe there is any benefit to looking at historical charts?
What helped me was to see how price behaves around key points during live trading. It's fairly predictable tbh. Same thing over and over.
I think when you see something in the market and you realize it has a name, then go read more about it.