Rating: 
Summary: Unreadable
Review: Luckily I borrowed this from a library. Look's like there's some interesting info when you skim through it, but the writing style is basically unreadable. Unless you're into pain, look for something better. Almost anything else on this subject would be more coherent. Nuff said.
Rating: 
Summary: A strong addition to my trading library
Review: Master Swing Trader is a significant work in trading literature. It's an outstanding study of price mechanisms and strategies. I keep it close to my trading screen at all time. It is the core reading for those pursuing discretionary entry and exit. It's absolutely the best market book I've come across in the last two years to deal with trading in this bear market.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing New
Review: Don't expect to read this book and discover any innovative or unique trading techniques. The author provides generalized observations about trading techniques used by day traders. I was originally drawn to the book because of the vast number of terms recognized, such as, MACD, Stocastic, Fibonacci, Super Zone, Diverence, Support and Resistence, Gann, and Outbreak. After reading more carefully about each concept, I realized the author was only generalizing from his experience rather than teaching the reader how to actually use a technique. For example, MACD the author states conservative traders buy or sell when the short average crosses the long average; whereas, aggressive traders buy long in the anticipation of large gains. This book draws critism because it tends to trivalize the complexity of the trading techniques. A seasoned trader knows it takes a series of techniques often used in combination to win. It is very possible to use one technique perfectly and yet loss money. The book itself leaves the reader biased towards the authors preferences of conservative trading. For example, he states that trading in stocks, such as: Dell, Microsoft, or Intel should be avoided because world class daytraders exchange within these companies. Yet the technology stocks often provide easy entrance and exits because of their large volume of trades. So this bias is often wrong and probably should be followed with a clear understanding losses are probable.So if your buying this book to read the technical analysis giving answers of when to be buy or sell then expect disappointment. However, if your reading the book to see generalized approaches to analyzing trends to improve investing, it may be helpful. If one believes that analyzing the historical prices can improve investments by being able to predict future prices generally they may find this pattern work but there is no guarantee of this conclusion. The real key is to form good entry and exit strategies with the understand these strategies may come from a vast array of techniques and experiences, not within the scope of this book, and with the understanding more technical adaption will be constantly required.
Rating:
Summary: The Happy Fool
Review: I must be the happy fool because I think this is one of the best books ever written about trading. The style was definitely different but it was probing and informative. I thought the pace and content was outstanding. It certainly made me think about everything I do, especially where I buy or sell. This is a book about discretionary trading. Systems traders won't like it, and should probably move on to something by Stridsman. But this is a superb manual for everyone else. Don't be put off by negative comments. There's a reason this is a best seller more than two years after publication. It's a perfect book for the tough market we find oiurselves in these days. I laughed when someone wrote this was a bull market book. Obviously they didn't get past the first chapter. There is a wealth of information to be had here.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not Practical
Review: You can't automate much of these suggestions and, as a result, you can't backtest their performance. I think that most traders use computer scanning to find candidates so this book won't help. If you trade just a few stocks, commodities, etc., these might help.
Rating:
Summary: Confusing writing
Review: I was looking forward to this book as I follow his trading writings in "Real Money" and he puts forward good stuff there.
However there is a "style" to his writing in this book that makes the content difficult to follow. His sentences are truncated and tend to flip from idea to idea all within a single paragraph, such that you need to keep going back and reread in order to follow what he is trying to say. From Real Money I know he is very knowledgable about swing trading, but you will find this book frustrating. Maybe it required a better editor. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Why this is a bad "textbook" on short term trading
Review: This book is written more like a novel than a text book on swing trading. The author completely fails to break his information down. The way the table of contents, chapters, and index are set up it would be next to impossible to quickly find useful information on any given topic. When describing his "7-bells," he makes a better attempt but counteracts this effort by adding too many real life examples and commentary. A couple successful real life examples can be found for any method in retrospect. A statistical testing of these methods would have been much more useful. I'm not saying that his methods aren't valid because I have yet to test them. However if you flip through his examples you will see charts from 1999-2000 of stocks that are either non-existant now or are trading for 1/3-1/10 of their prices then. I've been a profesional trader for 5 years and I know that the methods that I used in 1999-2000 to make a ridiculous amount of money do not work now. To summarize: this book is impossible to skim, really long, gives examples from a great trading market but gives no statistical evidence that any of these methods work at all, so if you have time to learn 400+ pages of information and to test these methods in many different trading environments then this could end up being a great trading book. However, as a trader I don't see this as a good risk:reward scenario.
Rating: 
Summary: Confused by the review differences?
Review: If you take the time to scan some of the reviews, it is apparent this book by Farley brings out the extremes in opinions (some reviewers have even made a big deal about this or accused the author and publisher of pumping the reviews!). What to do? Go to the excerpt section and read all 44 pages available for review. Then make up your mind if the book is worth it. These pages will give you a good feel for what lies ahead. I will also say this -- your opinion will depend very much on your "actual level as well as the intensity level" of trading experience; the more you have of each the more you will like it. In other words, if you don't have substantial and meaningful experience trading equities, start with something else. If English is not your native language, start with something else. If you aren't comfortable reading lengthy books, start with something else. If you approach trading equities with a closed mind, start with something else. Etc. It is not my intention to demean anyone by these comments. I just want to save some people the price of the book. Obviously, no book, in and of itself, will make you a successful trader or investor. If you can't disillusion yourself from that fantasy, and apparently many reviewers cannot or will not, then no book will satisfy you.
Rating:
Summary: 163 reviews??? How can this be????
Review: If you compare the number of reviews to other more popular trading books you see their number of reviews to be around 30 max the exception being Elders Trading for a living with 107. But 163 reviews, with reviews that exist at either extreme??? I believe the 5 star reviews are to bump up the average, proceed with extreme caution. Can you pick the 30 true reviews?
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reference Book.
Review: This is the best all-round book on indicators, patterns, analysis, strategies, rules, execution, and theory. It will help you develop your own style, something that works for you, which is better than trying to copy other peoples styles word for word from other books.
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