i got an idea about the guy from reading this- http://www.futuresmag.com/2008/04/15/five-minutes-to-fame-in-the-emini after i read this whole thing 3 times-i have no idea what he was talking about il ike the first sentence but after that-boy oh boy..yeah, it's shouldn't be complicated.but this guy did everything to make it impossible to understand. english is not my native language,but i just don't get it. first 4 hours? that's pretty much all day. what approach? and so on.. as for a futures-you 100% right. i trade stocks for over a decade. probably at least last 5-8 years-no losses. i made money every month,every year. even after such record i wasn't thinking about trading futures. because it's too hard. on stocks-the competition is limited,but not on futures. compete against whole entire world-thank you,but no thank you. huge margin+ high liquidity=bad idea,unless you have some really solid system(which i don't)
i have his book and now that my eyes are open (meaning im not WANTING this to work) i just pick apart every other page with his contradictions while i laugh to myself. an obvious clue to the ridiculousness of his method is the amount of weight he puts into, are you ready for it..... a reversal bar! wow. but if it fails, the failure should be good, but if that fails, then the failed failure should be even better. that sounds like flipping at every market turn to me. really, this is the kind of lunacy this guy talks about.
One fundamental mistake made by Al Brooks is that he made up his own assumptions about the market. For example, he said in his article linked by bob111: You look at the chart and you will know who is trapped, who wants to get out. The fact is there is no such a thing with a market index! The index (and its derivatives) is a result of many many individual stocks' combined actions. It's a computerized calculation on the basis of the contributing values of individual stocks. But Al Brooks erroneously assumes that the index is an individual stock, where people buy and get trapped, short and get trapped, eager to get out but cannot, so on and so forth. Then he starts to see things that do not exist in the chart. Then Nodoji, for some unknown reasons, vehemently promotes his book and his idea of price action.
Self Delusion is /runs very deep in the financial markets. Just because someone is "nice" and "wants to help" does not mean they are not charlatans or cranks. In fact, the market is a jungle, beware of those who appear helpful and nice-- without ANY evidence of success-- this is a sure sign you are being scammed for love, attention, adoration, or simply another block in the wall to build a following, if not money. Someone has a fortunate run of success so it must be the method-- in addition, there is a strange cult like attraction to pretending on the internet. None of these folks has posted statement number 1 showing success, not even Al B-- yet folks believe?? Strange but true dynamic. surf
Or....they may just be nice and feel like giving something back in a way that also doesn't destroy their method (ie mentoring someone one on one). You shouldn't always be so quick to judge everyone as having a sinister agenda.
the more i think about it, i think al's entire foundation of his body of work is junk science at best. that is, he puts a lot of emphasis on individual bars, whether they are large trend bars, doji's, reversal bars etc yet i dont think they have one ounce of meaning in terms of predictive value. I think price levels are important, yes, as in buyers or sellers may come in at a certain level BUT i dont think buying above a bull bar helps you any. also they way he uses leg counts is funny. he'll say for example.. break out, h1 (high 1) buy.. etc. then on another day he'll say.. break out h2 buy and on another day he'll say, break out h3 buy. im like, what good is counting high 1 2 3 or 9's if you just use the term at will without any rhyme or reason. very odd. i can see if he said, i only buy on the second leg but he doesnt, there is just no point to any of it.
Yes, it's rampant on the internet. Just look at the stories of people being fooled by a false ad on a dating site or facebook profile. They think they're chatting with some jet setting hot model but in reality it's some middle-age fat person in a trailer. When I stop and think about it, there have been several people exposed for "pretending" here on ET just in the year or so I've been reading here. Most recent example was in the 'lonliness of success' thread where the guy bemoaned having no one to talk to about his trading success. But in other posts he was making contradictory statements saying he wasn't profitable and had a long road ahead of him.... before that it was the Woody guy with his extravagant tales.... Internet urban legends are spawned this way and newbs are given a false impression of what they are getting themselves into.