Rating: 
Summary: A 'Classic' Bubble
Review: We all witnessed a period of stock market bubble. This book can be viewed as a mouldy residual, a truely worst residual from that period. If you ever spent any time on internet stock message boards, and felt disgusted by those greed, fears, hypes and whining, you will find out that all those emotional garbages again in this book, only dressed in various kind of uncommon 'terminologies' which the author even does not understand himself. Apparently, those web messageboard posters and that kind of mentality are exactly the target and intended audiences of this author. In this sense, the best I could say about this book is that I consider it a product of that peiord and phenomena in stock market history. If anyone has to call it a 'classic', then I could only consider it a 'classic' bubble, at its worst.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Trading Book of 2001
Review: This book helped lay the practical groundwork for my trading. I read it in January and have had a fantastic year so far. Honestly speaking, I had been a loser for several years. My mediocre knowledge of TA, trends and psychology always held me back. This book changed all that. It really helps traders to build their understanding of the trading science. It delivers what it promises: an alternative view of why prices move the way that they do. This is a must read and the best trading book of the year.
Rating:
Summary: Well Done!
Review: I just finished reading this book and am very impressed. I found the author's writing style to be very refreshing and original. I enjoyed his ideas even more. The insights into trading were very helpful and I am grateful for all of the information about insider views of the markets and the 3-D aspect of charts. Thank you for your excellent book!
Rating: 
Summary: Good Charts! Bad Writing!
Review: The first time you flip through this book you think, "Wow! I've never seen so many candlestick setups and charts!" The problem comes when you actually curl up and try to read this montrosity. The book is like a bag of Olean potato chips: taste good at first but impossible to digest. Oh, there are some nuggets here and there that are useful and informative; there are some passages on selected candlestick setups that can actually be used to trade with. The problem is that you have to wade through some heavy, turgid, dense and sometimes nonsensical prose to get there. You've been warned.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended!
Review: I've read more than 20 books on trading, and found this one to be the most useful of them all. It clearly shows how to find opportunity and how to trade it when you do. It turned around my performance from losing to winning. I am very grateful to the author.
Rating:
Summary: Easily the best swing trading book out there.......
Review: This is by far the best book I have read to date on price patterns and crowd behavior. Farley does a great job describing the key elements of a swing trader's success, including both common principles and quite a few I had never considered before. It also provides a great primer on technical analysis, with detailed explanations on how price action can be interpreted and used to the trader's advantage. Chapter 3 on Pattern Cycles is an excellent starting place for new traders. I highly recommend this book to all those who survived the recent market crash. It forces you to think.
Rating: 
Summary: a disappointment
Review: I do think there is some worthwhile content here...not very much, but some. It would be hard to ramble for 400 pages and not spew forth something useful. Farley's writing style is lengthy and needlessly confusing, with emphasis on needlessly. An example...when discussing triangle formations, he states 'Well-formed triangles gather tremendous predictive power because they point directly at negative-positive feedback interfaces.' Find an editor...please. That's his way of saying you can expect a significant price move on the breakout of a well-formed triangle. And the ENTIRE book is written this way...i could have used hundreds of examples. If you buy this book, prepare to be frustrated.
Rating:
Summary: Discretionary or Systems
Review: Before you consider buying this book, you have to decide whether you are more suited towards discretionary trading or mechanical systems trading. Despite what the author says or what other reviewers say, I believe you will get minimal benefit from this book if you are just starting out in developing and testing a non-discretionary system. If you are an intuitive and judgemental trader, you will get more benefits. Some say that mechanical systems ignore human psychology. That is not true. A good mechanical system has safeguards to protect human frailty (such as limiting number of consecutive losses or volatility stops), and again, you will not derive much benefit from this book in that regard, as the psychology involved here is geared towards intuitive/judgemental trading. Next, writing style. It is too repetitive for no particular reason. More on writing style. It defines non-standard expressions (eg EZ, CV, S/R) within the body, and there is no glossary of terms for quick reference, so if you forget one of these non-standard expressions, you have to scroll back and forth to find them. Now to content. Mr Farley appears to have cobbled together various indicators to manage a trade. Problem is they are not all consistent in their application. It smacks of optimization or curve fitting to me. Remember this in the context of great traders and great trading ideas, the simpler the better. Farley appears to like complexity. I cannot take the truth of assertions without testing as I am not an intuitive trader. For example, how do you know Fibonacci retracements always work this way? Or for that matter, candlesticks patterns? Or 2B patterns? Or trend lines? Or even support and resistance zones? Farley appears to take as self-evident that these indicators would work. If you trade Farley's methods, you will not be able to system test and determine whether they work before you risk your money. Another big minus, this book concentrates on entry and exit. There is nothing much on money management and position sizing. I gave it two stars because somewhere in that complexity and repetitions, the system developer might just find some nuggets of good ideas. I found one which I have to adapt to my system.
Rating:
Summary: Shortened my learning curve
Review: MST certainly attracts a great deal of both admiration and criticism. For me, this is the one of the best trading books I have ever read. It goes into the mechanics of price movement better than anything I can recall. It is written with the benefit of a pro's experience. Don't be put off by the extensive terminology. Many of the concepts and mechanisms described by Farley just didn't have adequate names until he defined them. I highly recommend the financial and time commitment necessary to acquire, read and study this excellent trading manual.
Rating:
Summary: Well-written and comprehensive book
Review: This is an outstanding study of modern markets and technical trading. I've been trading for over 12 years and thought I'd heard and seen it all. But I was able to uncover many new gems in this book. Farley's point of view is unique and valuable. The Master Swing Trader is both comprehensive and detailed in its general concepts and specific trading tactics. It should be recognized as one of those few books that traders must read to learn how to succeed in the markets long-term.
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