Rating: 
Summary: "Getting Started..." won't get you started
Review: I found this book very hard to read. It actually took me several months to finish it, after several tries. I've read a lot of TA books and most I finish in a few days. His explanations are not very good and combined with poor graphics/charts mades them very hard to follow. A more simple, clear and concise writing style is needed for an introductory book. It's wording it's too technical for the beginner and too shallow for the experienced. I don't think this is a good book for a beginner trader. Volume is one of the 'KEY' elements in TA, but this author ignores volume. Was this Schwager guy really a trader? how can he trade without taking volume into account? If you are starting in TA, I suggest you better start with "The Technical Analysis Course"
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best Technical Analysis books
Review: I thought Schwager did an excellent job with this book. I have read a ton of books on technical analysis and can say that this is definitely one of the best ones out there. I really liked the book, the real world chart analysis was excellent as was the section on trading systems. I recommend this book without hesitation whenever someone asks about a good technical analysis book. It is probably the best book on technical analysis I have read it does an excellent job showing how a trader actually uses and interprets charts and indicators. It ranks in the top 10 books on trading that I have and it has paid for itself many times over.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent beginner's book
Review: I'm familiar with Schwager from his two Market Wizards books, in which he interviewed and profiled many of the great traders of our times, such as Paul Tudor Jones, the great futures and swing trader. So when I saw this I decided to check it out.I would recommend this as a good beginner's book. Read this before you undertake Martin Pring's book on technical analysis, for example, as his exhaustive analysis of chart patterns will be too dense and forbidding if you're just starting out. Schwager strikes a good balance between getting the concept across and inundating the beginner with too many details. Most technical analysis methods aren't that hard to understand, even the ones based on more sophisticated math; it's the application to the real-world charts that takes some skill and experience. For me the best chapter was the 82 Rules of Trading, which contains 82 short statements about trading principles, including such classics as never selling a stock that is making new highs (probably as close to an "absolute" principle as there is in the markets). This chapter may be most useful to someone with more trading experience in the market who's experienced what happens when you violate these principles, but they're there anyway, and it won't hurt you to get exposed to them right off. Overall, a well written, clear, and concise introduction on this aspect of trading.
Rating:
Summary: Master this.
Review: If you want to trade commodity futures (and who doesn't?), there's no better place to start than with the "Getting Started..." series, and this volume in particular. There are books with more detail and broader coverage, but you have no business looking at them until you master the stuff Schwager presents here. And there's a gracious plenty here (339 pages). He covers, among other things, the validity of technical analysis, chart principles and patterns, trendline construction, trade management, and failed signals ("the most important rule in chart analysis"), with enough humor to pleasantly surprise you from time to time. I've been studying commodities for about a year and trading a little, and I keep coming back to Schwager to clear my head.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Necessarily a Beginner's Book.
Review: It was a little difficult to read and took a couple of months to finish. It's not what I expected from a "Getting Started In...." book. I have read other books in this series like "Getting Started In Options Trading" and that book was utterly great. (Highly recommended by the way.) But "Getting Started In Technical Analysis" was a disappointment. For one thing, some of the concepts weren't thoroughly explained. In other aspects, he talks about a figure of a chart that most of the time is at least 2 pages away. You catch yourself flipping around the pages like crazy, and he doesn't do a very good job explaning the charts either. He does do a good job of laying out all the different aspects of technical analysis but I am not sure how helpful they were in actually getting a feel for them. If you decide to buy this book, don't hesitate to return it. I kind of wish I did.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible Book Layout
Review: Jack Schwager's book has good content. He knows what he is talking about. This book has a terrible physical layout and printing format. It is noticeably a bad layout. I've read dozens of investing and trading books found on Amazon, but this one stands out as a really bad printing job. The book is a paperback book, which is just fine. The text of the book is printed in a screened-back light blue text. It takes very bright light to be able to see the text on the page. Forget about reading the book unless you are in bright sunlight or have a very bright light. Throughout the book, the illustrations are one or more pages ahead of the text. It is good to have illustrations and charts, but they should be closer to the text. Again, the content is good, but the layout and format are terrible.
Rating:
Summary: A Complete Guide to Technical Analysis
Review: Now don't get me wrong by the title, there are more methods of Technical Analysis than Schwager covers in this book...However, his many years of actually trading against analytical methods has given him great insight and time to study, characterize and rate the value of many of the most common analytical methods. He is quick to point out in several places in the book that these are "Western" analytical methods, practiced in the Euro-American world of futures trading. The beginning of the book is a laborious and elementary but complete description of basic technical techniques. The later chapters talk about building trading systems using combinations of the techniques discussed in the beginning. There is a fair amount of history lesson given as to how the methods were 'discovered' or derived. In general, although ponderous to get through, I think that this detailed analysis allows the reader to believe in the method, the author, and the application of the method. I highly recommend this book as the single basic reference that a technical trader cannot ignore.
Rating:
Summary: Not author's best
Review: The prevailing guidance of the book is that traders "need to experiment to see what works" (this phrase is found numerous times in the book). Then why read the book? The author doesn't really offer anything useful to the reader that isn't found in works by other authors. In the first paragraph of Chapter 14 I discovered why: "For obvious reasons, this book will not offer detailed descriptions of the best trading systems I have designed". So, everything the author includes in the book is just second best! Don't waste time studying this book; the author is not interested in helping you!
Rating:
Summary: Not author's best
Review: The prevailing guidance of the book is that traders "need to experiment to see what works" (this phrase is found numerous times in the book). Then why read the book? The author doesn't really offer anything useful to the reader that isn't found in works by other authors. In the first paragraph of Chapter 14 I discovered why: "For obvious reasons, this book will not offer detailed descriptions of the best trading systems I have designed". So, everything the author includes in the book is just second best! Don't waste time studying this book; the author is not interested in helping you!
Rating: 
Summary: Crucial for beginners
Review: This book is dense with information and cannot be approached lightly. I read "New Market Wizards" in one week but this book took two months. As usual, the effort expended is proportional to the benefit received. In particular, the chapter on "Real Life Chart Analysis" is worth the price, and should be three times longer. There, Mr. Schwager shares two dozen of his own real-life trades, accompanied by the charts and technical analysis he used at the time. The reader is given the opportunity to personally apply the techniques learned from the book to second-guess the author. Only on flip pages are the actual trade results shown, annotated with ruminations on what, if anything, should have been done differently. Examples of both successful and unsuccessful trades are given. Approximately half of the book explains technical analysis, and the other half explains basic trading techniques such as money management, system testing, and the psychological (emotional) pitfalls to avoid. In my humble opinion, no one should trade until understanding the principles presented here. My one criticism is that the book would be easier to follow if the charts were on the same page as their related commentary, but it is only fair to mention that most technical analysis books suffer the same shortcoming. Overall it does a decent job presenting crucially important information for beginners.
| 
