Harmonic Trading, Volume One: Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets
Harmonic Trading, Volume One: Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets
The Definitive Introduction to Harmonic Trading–By the Originator of This Approach, Scott Carney! “I have always found it fascinating that, in the field of securities analysis, so few important gains have been made in the body of knowledge since the 1920s and 1930s. There are a small number of modern-day pioneers among us who must be sought out. Scott Carney is one of those pioneers who has devoted himself to the task of uncovering the hidden logic in the movements of the markets. Harmon
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(out of 3 reviews)
List Price: $ 59.99
Price: $ 35.69
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Sep 5, 2010 6:39 pm |
Review by Radu H for Harmonic Trading, Volume One: Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets
Rating:
Technical analysis is a field which developed spectacularly fast in the last decade. Lots of materials appeared on the market, flooding the potential reader with tons of information (much of it redundant). This is why it is essential to have some way of browsing though it.
In the markets there are various opinion currents regarding the technical analysis. One of the recent ones appeals to the natural order of the markets and to uncovering patterns which appear from time to time. This approach to technical analysis does not try to find models where there is none. Rather the natural order trading is trying to catch patterns as they emerge and ride them for the benefit of the trader. These things said, “Harmonic Trading – Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets” is a book which uncovers several such patterns for the benefit of the trader.
Scott Carney, founder and president of a company called (surprise surprise) “Harmonic Trading”, has studied quite a long time these patterns. His experience started with the Fibonacci approach, a trading method which uses the Fibonacci numbers to predict the most probable incoming price levels. This is a probabilistic approach and, like all the methods based on probabilities, it chases patterns where over the long term you are more likely to offset losses with your gains (rather than the other way around).
Many of the methods (if not all) described in the volume 1 are methods which a seasoned trader has previously seen in other books, piece by piece. Even so, the book is quite easy to read and does not involve too much effort from the reader. And it does a good job in order to bring together the main patterns and their detailed explanations under one cover. I liked a lot the so-called “bat pattern”, where the price of a security goes up and down tracing the shape of a bat’s wings (if you add also the bottom lines). Carney not only showed the bat pattern in various set-ups, but also did the extra mile job to trace on the graph the Fibonacci proportions among the bat’s wings. Now this is what I call an above-the-average effort, since most of the books I was reading were just telling you to look by yourself at those numbers and required you to believe them and trace the proportions in solitude.
“Harmonic Trading – Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets” is not a book for the beginners, though. It requires you to understand a bit the mechanics behind trading. You should have also used for a couple of months a trading platform, otherwise you risk of being discouraged by the relatively technical language of the book. Yet, the book is not too advanced in notions – just at the average level of a trader, making the reader’s life much easier.
The good news is that there is a volume 2 for this book, with more advanced techniques. When I will get my hands on this second volume of “Harmonic Trading – Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets”, I will surely come back with more details, as I already did on the topic on the investment blog on [...]. Until then, have a nice reading session!
Sep 5, 2010 6:44 pm |
Review by Jackal for Harmonic Trading, Volume One: Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets
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This is really a book about Fibonacci ratios. I would say this is one of the strongest books I’ve read on Fibonacci. The “science” of Fibonacci as applied to trading is very embryotic. Different authors have different approaches. In my view, you cannot expect to get a ready made Fibonacci trading system from a book. You need to read several books on the topic and form your own opinion of what works. Having said this, the current book presents a number of patterns that are supposed to have forecasting value. So it is actually quite close to a trading system. However, there isn’t much evidence in the book about the effectiveness of the patterns. (The same can be said abot most technical analysis books so it doesn’t really affect my rating of the book).
Out of the Fibonacci books I’ve read I would rank this book the highest together with Boroden’s Fibonacci Trading: How to Master the Time and Price Advantage. (Miner’s High Probability Trading Strategies: Entry to Exit Tactics for the Forex, Futures, and Stock Markets (Wiley Trading) uses Fibonacci in the same way as Boroden so you might want to consider that book instead – but it covers other material as well.)
If you’re interested in Elliott Waves I think the current book would be useful as well because many of the patterns ressemble corrective waves.
I have written several short reviews on trading books. The best way is to compare the score on the books I’ve read. Many reviews on amazon.com are just glorious 5 star reviews. I use all five categories; sorry but everything isn’t “great”. Books rated 5 are very good. Books rated 4 are good solid books well worth reading. Books rated 3 can be bought by some people who read a lot or have very specific needs. Books rated 1 or 2 I would not recommend buying or reading. Naturally all in my humble opinion.
Sep 5, 2010 7:11 pm |
Review by Ely for Harmonic Trading, Volume One: Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets
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I was introduced to Scott’s system several months ago when I was at my lowest professionally, having struggled for years to try and master the art of trading on my own. When I first looked at the website, I wasn’t sure that I was up to the task because it looked really complicated, but I decided to read the first book ” The Harmonic Trader” because I didn’t have any better ideas at the time and sure enough after a period of study I started to understand where Scott was coming from,which was made so much easier, by the totally unpretentious way in which he goes about explaining what is really an outstanding body of work and trading system. I then moved onto Vol 1 and this really confirmed to me that The Harmonic Trader will be the main stay of my trading system, now and in the future. If I can sum up what it has given me, it’s a precise system with boundaries that takes the emotion out of trading and allows you to trade with confidence in an arena which has no boundaries and one where you have some of the best brains and most sophisticated trading systems operating. If you are looking for a quick fix then this is definitely not the system for you; you have to commit to the process of learning the system and although I am at the very beginning of my journey as a student of Harmonics, I feel confident that I now have a means of trading the market successfully, but I also realize that I will always be a student of the constantly evolving market and of the constantly evolving Harmonic Trading system, hence I’m just about to start reading Volume 2.
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