Rating: 
Summary: An infomercial for MESA Software
Review: ...I have only read this book once and to be honest I will not read it again. I like the two indicators outlined in the book and I must admit that I use them in my systems but that is almost everything that I got out of the book. Instead of this one I would rather recommend "Trading Systems that Work".Actually this book reminds me of "New Trading Dimensions" by Bill Williams...another true example of a guy who tries to take away your $$$ instead of letting you lose them in the stock market and thereby learn as much as you can from that particular book. Good luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Not a bad read...
Review: ...I have only read this book once and to be honest I will not read it again. I like the two indicators outlined in the book and I must admit that I use them in my systems but that is almost everything that I got out of the book. Instead of this one I would rather recommend "Trading Systems that Work". Actually this book reminds me of "New Trading Dimensions" by Bill Williams...another true example of a guy who tries to take away your $$$ instead of letting you lose them in the stock market and thereby learn as much as you can from that particular book. Good luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Digital Signal Processing Meets Trading Head-On!!!
Review: Dr. Ehler's book presents a foundation from which markets may be categorized as having different modes, including cycle and trend. This is a critical distinction, as different indicators and methods may be applied to each. The book reveals how modern digital signal processing techniques may be applied to market data analysis. It successfully addresses readers with vastly different backgrounds in math and trading. A rigorous understanding of the derivations of the equations is not necessary to profit from the final products. There is material present for individuals at all levels. Almost any of the chapters could represent the substrate for an effective trading approach. All material is fully disclosed, in Easylanguage, and may be immediately implemented in Tradestation.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshingly new and different
Review: Finally a book on trading that is completely different from all the others I have read. If you are getting the unhealthy feeling that 99% of all the indicators and techniques you are using, or came with your charting package, are minor variations on the same tired theme, then you should get this book. Note: do not be put off by the math in the book. If you just skip what you don't understand, and I skipped a lot, there is enough informative pure text for you to get most of the benefits of the ideas that are put across in this fine text. In addition there are a couple of complete trading systems and a plethora of new and innovative indicators for which you are given the complete TradeStation Easy Language code....
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read on Tech. analysis, indicators & systems
Review: Great Book! Reading "Rocket Science for Traders" was like taking a fresh breath of air. I devoured it over one weekend and have read and studied some chapter portions two or three times since my first reading. Over the years I've read most of the best and highly recommended technical analysis books and studied the various indicators that are being used and sometimes touted. However, I have consistently come away feeling that so many people pursuing technical analysis are not very technical at all. For example, a well known and widely used indicator takes the standard deviation of price data and uses it. Price data, however, is not "normal" or Gaussian distributed. Therefore, the standard deviation, as calculated, is mis-applied and what results is not an accurate variance measurement around the price mean or average as it is intended to be.
In his book, John Ehlers has provided us, a set of indicators, systems and concepts that are sound conceptually, mathematically and fundamentally proven. The tools that he presents are accepted, in science and engineering, around the world as some of the best that we have in which to model discrete and sampled data systems like the stock market. His book has helped confirm some of my ideas and I have enhanced the effectiveness of my systems with the use of his little and no lag processes and models.
I have a strong engineering and math background and the book to me was a "God send" because the theory, examples and EasyLanguage code were all given and well presented. However, I believe a beginner and any serious trader or student will likewise significantly benefit from John's book. That's because its easy to read, i.e., the concepts and applications are clearly explained in plain english. You don't have to do any math or understand the math or derivation concepts to use and apply the indicators and systems. Also, as mentioned above, the EasyLanguage code is provided and also easy to read and understand.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read on Tech. analysis, indicators & systems
Review: Great Book! Reading "Rocket Science for Traders" was like taking a fresh breath of air. I devoured it over one weekend and have read and studied some chapter portions two or three times since my first reading. Over the years I've read most of the best and highly recommended technical analysis books and studied the various indicators that are being used and sometimes touted. However, I have consistently come away feeling that so many people pursuing technical analysis are not very technical at all. For example, a well known and widely used indicator takes the standard deviation of price data and uses it. Price data, however, is not "normal" or Gaussian distributed. Therefore, the standard deviation, as calculated, is mis-applied and what results is not an accurate variance measurement around the price mean or average as it is intended to be.
In his book, John Ehlers has provided us, a set of indicators, systems and concepts that are sound conceptually, mathematically and fundamentally proven. The tools that he presents are accepted, in science and engineering, around the world as some of the best that we have in which to model discrete and sampled data systems like the stock market. His book has helped confirm some of my ideas and I have enhanced the effectiveness of my systems with the use of his little and no lag processes and models.
I have a strong engineering and math background and the book to me was a "God send" because the theory, examples and EasyLanguage code were all given and well presented. However, I believe a beginner and any serious trader or student will likewise significantly benefit from John's book. That's because its easy to read, i.e., the concepts and applications are clearly explained in plain english. You don't have to do any math or understand the math or derivation concepts to use and apply the indicators and systems. Also, as mentioned above, the EasyLanguage code is provided and also easy to read and understand.
Rating:
Summary: A new toolset for trading.
Review: I am a student currently writing a dissertation on the development of mechanical trading systems, and I found this
book was helpful to develop a systematic approach based on a new and more sophistacted set of indicators.
I found the MAMA moving average as explained in the book particularly useful. The book may be a bit hard to read but it was definitely worth the effort and it supplies some systems like the Zero Lag and the Sinewave System, which are worth much more than the price of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Uh, what on earth is this?
Review: I don't own this book, and I haven't read this book, so I could be way off. But based on the two pages I read using Amazon's new "read the page" feature, from a mathematical/scientific perspective I wouldn't touch this with a 200' pole (for the record: I have 3 graduate degrees in physics and mathematics, including a PhD, so my opinion of this guy's methodology should carry some weight). The way he explains the mathematics and science reads like something I'd expect in an essay from a (not too bright) College Sophomore: lots of handwaving and meaningless analogy, hoping that you don't know enough about the subject (and most of his audience doesn't) to distinguish valid argument from snake-oil.
Rating:
Summary: gimme a break!
Review: i fear the writer of this book may well be a charlatain: one finds charlatains in the speculative venues with great regularity these days, and among their many tricks is the mathematics which they use to cover their slight of hand. mr. ehler's mathematics has the selfsame odor: his is a hodgepodge of methods taken from various disciplines and thrown at the reader with little or no coherence, system, or, i fear, understanding. mistakes are made in application--as, for instance, the assertion that bandpass is accomplished by smoothing (the MA), when bandpass filters only tangentially modify noise. mr. ehlers goes to great lengths to explain certain elements of grade school mathmatics, but cavalierly tosses his occasional differential equation forth without adequate, and certainly without clear, exposition of its use and implications for the techniques mr. ehlers is demonstrating. one might suspect that mr. ehlers may himself only understand the former, and be utterly confused about the latter, if he were in an uncharitable mood. is this snake oil? is the reader made uncertain witness at the intellectual equivalent of a revival meeting? shrug with me, for i don't know. as to the application of these techniques, one can only employ them if a. one's grasp of the field of signal processing and its mathematics is adequate to disentangle some useful material and ideas from the presentation (if, that is, one can overcome the impulse to laugh)--although in which case, you probably would not need this book; or b. one is willing to purchase mr.ehler's software to do it for him (surprise, surprise). my advice is, if you wish to have a book with which to convince your friends that indeed, speculation is an honorable venue, perhaps this is it: opening it certainly stuns the unsuspecting, what with our almost reverential ignorance of formulae. if you wish to have a book that WOULD impress your friends, and they were mathematically literate, get mandlebrot's or some such. alas, the truth is, if you wish to apply processes and techniques from the sciences and mathematics to finance, you have to study the science and the math, and do it yourself. in sum, it may be that mr. ehlers knows whereof he speaks, but the reader will almost certainly not.
Rating:
Summary: gimme a break!
Review: i fear the writer of this book may well be a charlatain: one finds charlatains in the speculative venues with great regularity these days, and among their many tricks is the mathematics which they use to cover their slight of hand. mr. ehler's mathematics has the selfsame odor: his is a hodgepodge of methods taken from various disciplines and thrown at the reader with little or no coherence, system, or, i fear, understanding. mistakes are made in application--as, for instance, the assertion that bandpass is accomplished by smoothing (the MA), when bandpass filters only tangentially modify noise. mr. ehlers goes to great lengths to explain certain elements of grade school mathmatics, but cavalierly tosses his occasional differential equation forth without adequate, and certainly without clear, exposition of its use and implications for the techniques mr. ehlers is demonstrating. one might suspect that mr. ehlers may himself only understand the former, and be utterly confused about the latter, if he were in an uncharitable mood. is this snake oil? is the reader made uncertain witness at the intellectual equivalent of a revival meeting? shrug with me, for i don't know. as to the application of these techniques, one can only employ them if a. one's grasp of the field of signal processing and its mathematics is adequate to disentangle some useful material and ideas from the presentation (if, that is, one can overcome the impulse to laugh)--although in which case, you probably would not need this book; or b. one is willing to purchase mr.ehler's software to do it for him (surprise, surprise). my advice is, if you wish to have a book with which to convince your friends that indeed, speculation is an honorable venue, perhaps this is it: opening it certainly stuns the unsuspecting, what with our almost reverential ignorance of formulae. if you wish to have a book that WOULD impress your friends, and they were mathematically literate, get mandlebrot's or some such. alas, the truth is, if you wish to apply processes and techniques from the sciences and mathematics to finance, you have to study the science and the math, and do it yourself. in sum, it may be that mr. ehlers knows whereof he speaks, but the reader will almost certainly not.
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