I was asked several times to recommend TA books to those who just started to learn TA. So instead of answering individually, I started this thread.

Listed herewith is a list of book that I had read and find it useful.

Before go into the list, let me clarify that not every pages of each books I find it useful. My rational is always that if the book can teach me something useful, however small, is a good book. This is especially when we are talking about TA / trading here. Any tips from the author that can save me 1 tick would probably cover the cost of that book.

Some books are not telling me something new, but telling me something I already know from a different perspective. Some books tell me a technique that inspire me to look at another technique.

Do not take the words from the authors as it is. Many times the examples sighted in the books are classics, selected from thousands charts, to show the author's concept at its best. Do play it around with your own data to check the validity.

General TA books that lay the foundation
Technical Analysis of Stock Trend by Robert D Edwards and John Margee
Technical Analysis of the Financially Stock Markets by John Murphy
Technical Analysis Explained by Martin Pring

Candlesticks
Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques by Steve Nison: good introduction to candlesticks charting.
Candle Power by Gregory L Morris: add more candlestick patterns/combination.
Beyond Candlesticks by Steve Nison: cover charts like renko, kagi, 3 line breaks that seldom seen in others books.
Trading Application of Japanese Candlestick Charting by Cary S Wagner & Bradley L Matheny: more candlesticks pattern

Fibonacci
Trading with DiNapoli Levels by Joe DiNapoli: good practical use of fibonacci levels in trading.
The New Fibonacci Trader by Robert Fisher: interesting use of ellipse and fibo spiral.

Elliot Waves
Elliot Wave Principle by Frost and Prechter: lay the foundation of EW.
Integrated Technical Analysis" by Ian Copsey: combinations of EW waves and cycles.
Technical Analysis For The Trading Professional by Constance Brown: combination EW, fibo etc.

Momentum
Market Momentum by Martin Pring: focus on momentum indicators
Momentum, Direction and Divergence by William Blau; focus on momentum and divergence

Others TA Books
Point & Figure Charting by Thomas Dorsey: focus on PnF trading technique
Profits in Volume by Richard W Arms: focus on equivolume trading
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van Tharp: Trading system, position sizing
The Master Swing Trader by Alan S Farley: short term trading, fibo, pattern
Market Trading Tactics by Daryl Guppy: short term trading
Better Trading by Daryl Guppy: money and risk management

Non TA books that is worth reading
Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre
Contrarian Investing by Gallea & William Patalon III

That is quite a huge list, many beginners will have trouble digesting all these books. So I added here some tips, based on my limited experience.

1. If you are new to TA, it is better to start off with a general TA books to cover almost every sector of TA. After going through the basic books, play around with live data for a while using all kind of indicator etc describe in the general TA books. See which part of the TA have more confidence and wish to explore more, go find books that are more specific to that topics and goes into detail.

2. There are a lot of TA info available in the internet. Some ask for subscription fee, but many are free; so don't spend money on that. Go try it with your live data and see how good they are.

3. Beside charts and indicators, do made an effort to look at books that cover the non charting part of trading: position sizing, trade management, stop placement, risk management, pyramid.

4. Though I am not a FA person, but basic general FA do help on my tradings. I hate building my trading position on a rotten company's share: the odd of winning is not in my favour.

5. "Don't care white cat or black cat, can catch mouse is good cat".

I am still learning now, so my view is limited by my experience. You judge yourself.

Where to get these TA books?

The best way is to borrow first, from your friend or from library. Only when you find them useful or you cannot get hold of a copy, then consider buying.

Borders, Kinokuniya, MPH have many of them on the shelf that await you to fish out your credit card. Don't buy the whole spectrum, pick one and finish reading it before deciding you wish buy more.

There are also online bookstore available. Among them, Traders Library (http://www.traderslibrary.com/) has the widest selection. One tip for those who intend to buy TA books from traders library: Try buy those that are currently on sales/promotion, and postpone your others intended purchase to a later date. Traders Library typically run different special offer very now and then, be it discount on book price/shipping or free books/tapes. I am sure you don't like to see the book you just bought last week (and worse: have not arrived yet) is going at a 20% discount the this week.

Of course, try control your urge to buy up the whole library. Buying TA books and reading TA book will not make you rich, it is the actually discipline approach to trading that bring in money.

Profitable trading to all.

Anyone has any good TA book to recommend are welcome to do a review here. Thanks for sharing so that all can benefit.

I was once asked what were the best indicators. I answered that you would have
to find out what work and what won't work for you.

The response quickly shot back like this:
"I don't want to re-invent the wheel! Just tell me what are the indicators that work."

I had to answer, "I don't know".

Until you come to the realization that human beings are born losers when it comes
to finance and investment, until you come to accept this, your search will be
fruitless no matter how many books you read. The mind play tricks with us. The
first thing to conquer is your mind. For within it are found greed and fear. These
two will destroy you even when you have the best arsenal.

I paid a lot of money to the market just to learn this and also wasted a lot of time.
But then I call this real-life experience that one accumlates day-to-day, month-to
-month, year-toyear.

I don't know of any books on this, I rely on Buddhist teachings of the mind. Books
on Buddhist teaching of the mind are free distribution. Your karmic relation plays
an important role on whether you will learn to tame your mind. For whether you
will search them out depends on your karma. Not mine, not someone else's but
yours.

Many people, including myself, started out by looking for books to learn about
technical indicators. This is the wrong path to take. I don't know which one to place
first; mind or money management. Both are the initial foundation. They must not
only be taught but learned at the kindergarten level. The indicators can come
later. Like in construction of a high rise building, the important stage is the soil
survey and the foundation piling. Not done properly, the building will collapse.

Although he shot himself in the head after failing to make another comeback,
Jesse Livermore left behind valuable teachings. He made and lost multi-million
dollars fortunes four times.

His book, Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator, will show you how the game
is played over and over again. You will also learn why he failed - greed and lack of
proper money management.

Unfortunately, there are no books specialising in money management in a practical
way. Forget about those by academics or Phds if they are not traders themselves.
They are useless. The good ones are found in chapters and usually at the back end.
Sad but true. The market demand is for indicators. That's what people want.
Remember that human beings are born losers in their money thinking. So
indicators books are plenty.

The best I can think of are the money management chapters found in these two
books:

The Dow Jones-Irwin Guide to Trading Systems
Bruce Babcock, Jr.
ISBN 1-55623-126-1
This book might have been renamed.

Trading Systems That Work
Thomas Stridsman
ISBN 0-07-135980-X

"Knowledgeable commodity traders have been suggesting for a number of years
that with proper money management a person could pick his entry points by
chance and still make money. For the average trader, spending hours and hours
refining his analytical techniques to no avail, that is a depressing thought. How
important is money management? Can it really make up for bad predictions? Very,
and yes. For the mechnical system trader, the time to make sure the system
adheres to proper money management principles is while you are creating and
testing your system. Once you start trading, it is too late.

Money management. Nice buzz words - but what do they really mean? There are
four important concepts in speculative money management: 1) Proper account
size, 2) Diversification, 3) Risk management, and 4) Trading multiple contracts."
Bruce Babcock, Jr.

If you did not learn the alphabet and numbers in kindergarten, you will not be able
to learn English, Maths and Science in primary school. If you did not learn English,
Maths and Science in primary school, you will not make it in secondary, JC and
university.

So go to kindergarten first.

How important is soil survey and piling? How important is the foundation?

You will see this article in today's The Straits Times in the Home section on page H9:

Tilting building: 2 men, firm charged
Concrete piles were not deep enough, contrary to approved piling plan, say charges

"During the piling from Aug 18 to Oct 12 , 2000, the company allegedly deviated in a material way from the piling plan approved by the Commissioner of Bilding Control on Aug 17, 2000."

"Construction at the 27,580 sq ft site began five years ago, in July 2000 and the tilt, the result of soil problems, was discovered in 2002 as it was nearing completion."

So the technical indicators you learn and keep on each storey of the 30-storey building is of no use unless you rectify the foundation problem first.

"Early this year, Samsung made a deal with the building's owners - CapitaLand, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the OCBC Group - to do full rectification works, scheduled to be completed by the end of this year."

"The 36 Stratgies Of The Chinese For Financial Traders" is the latest book by Daryl Guppy, and a thick one.

This "36 strategies", is not "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, which has already have a few books written on it. "The Art of War" gives more overall strategic view, making it easier for the author to articulate and adapt into different situational application. "36 Strategies" is more of a tactical view, and since it come from various incidence part of China history/literature, total adaptation to financial trading is not very good.

What Guppy did in this book he goes through each and every strategy, gives explanation, sighting the origin, talk about his understanding of the strategy and its trading implication, and lastly sights two or three application examples. These examples can be tactics about entry or exit, or money management tips.

From the fact that Guppy has to go through all the strategies, and doing the above no matter how not applicable the strategies is to trading, I find that some of the trading implication discussed does not matched up; forcing these discussion to the strategies is putting them in a very awkward perspective. This is especially so for someone like me who can read Chinese and understand Chinese culture better.

I am not say the tactics and insights provided by Guppy is no good, but the matching is far from perfect. As a reader, I just ignore the supposedly selling point of "36 strategies" and concentrate on what Guppy is trying to say on trading matters. With minimum reference to the strategies, the I still gain all the snapshot of tactic and insights of Guppy, while the historical origin just become a past time leisure reading. However, due to the fact that Guppy is tabling all the 36 strategies, the discussion of each of the idea are not thoroughly covered. Quite a few reference are made in the book that refer reader to Guppy's previous book, where reader has to read if he wish to have more understanding.

Another point to note is that since this is supposedly a book about "36 strategies", Guppy did not cover anything new as far as I can recalled in this book, but just pulling idea/insights which can be found in his previous books and put them in places where they fit best. So for readers who are had read Guppy's previous books and are looking for more insights and ideas, I am afraid to say that be prepared to be disappointed.

It looks to me that Guppy is trying to gain more popularity in the China market, digging out the famous Chinese "36 strategies" and sprinkle them on bit and pieces of his trading thoughts. If we just trim away the "36 strategies" and concentrate of his trading thoughts, maybe we can have a more in depth coverage, or a thinner book.

Just my view now, and I stand corrected if I have time to reread this book later.

Way of the Turtle by Curtis M Faith



The cover of the books says: The Secret Methods that turned Ordinary People into Legendary Traders. And under the author name is "Original Turtle, Class of 1983". Very catchy.

I did not noticed that the word "Turned" is in past tense till I finished reading the book.

Thought this book cover how the author started as Turtle trainee, and some trading events happened later, it does not talk specifically on turtle trading other than the bonus chapter at the end of the book. It talks about system trading in general terms. It covers trading systems, their building blocks, and their evaluations. What is done is in trader's point of view, rather then academically or statically biased. So fear not, you don't need rocket science mathematics.

This book also cover the the briefly the use of diversification in system trading, both in market selection and system selection. And finally, traders ultimate enemy: himself.

If you are looking for a book that cover specifically only turtle trading, you may get a little disappointed. If you already has the turtle rules, I think visiting the online forum such as the http://www.tradingblox.com/forum/ will give more detailed discussion on various components of turtle rules.

The value of this book come from the discussion of various concepts of system trading and their evaluations, from the trader's perspective, along with some related trading issues.

I suggest reader who are not familiar with the turtle trading rules read the bonus chapter at the end of the book first. This bonus chapter talks specifically the original turtle rules, bolts and nuts: entry, exit, stop and more. You don't have to fully understand every calculation, but you have to know what that turtle rules covers. In this way, when you are reading the narrative by Curtis in the chapters before this bonus chapter, you know where he is coming from; and you can understand the concept better.

This book, in Curtis unique way, is not touting Turtle Trading system as the ONLY trading system one should trade. Nor system trading is for everyone. Nor trading is for everyone.

Thus the word "Turned" is in past tense.

In conclusion, this is still an worthwhile read,

This book is currently on promotion offer in Times Bookstore and Borders Books store as I last check. If you wish to save a few dollars, go and pick up one fast.

Curtis is clever.

Write a book on turtle trading?

Or trading using the turtle methods, or teaching the turtle methods or writing software for the turtle methods ?

Given a choice, I will write a book on turtle trading.

Anyway,
the library has ordered many.
I can wait.