Trading Price Action Trading Ranges: Technical Analysis of Price Charts Bar by Bar for the Serious Trader

Book description

Praise for Trading Price Action Trading Ranges

"Al Brooks has written a book every day trader should read. On all levels, he has kept trading simple, straightforward, and approachable. By teaching traders that there are no rules, just guidelines, he has allowed basic common sense to once again rule how real traders should approach the market. This is a must-read for any trader that wants to learn his own path to success."

—Noble DraKoln, founder, SpeculatorAcademy.com, and author of Trade Like a Pro and Winning the Trading Game

"A great trader once told me that success was a function of focused energy. This mantra is proven by Al Brooks, who left a thriving ophthalmology practice to become a day trader. Al's intense focus on daily price action has made him a successful trader. A born educator, Al also is generous with his time, providing detailed explanations on how he views daily price action and how other traders can implement his ideas with similar focus and dedication. Al's book is no quick read, but an in-depth road map on how he trades today's volatile markets, complete with detailed strategies, real-life examples, and hard-knocks advice."

—Ginger Szala, Publisher and Editorial Director, Futures magazine

Over the course of his career, author Al Brooks, a technical analysis contributor to Futures magazine and an independent trader for twenty-five years, has found a way to capture consistent profits regardless of market direction or economic climate. And now, with his new three-book series—which focuses on how to use price action to trade the markets—Brooks takes you step by step through the entire process.

In order to put his methodology in perspective, Brooks examined an essential array of price action basics and trends in the first book of this series, Trading Price Action TRENDS. Now, in this second book, Trading Price Action TRADING RANGES, he provides important insights on trading ranges, breakouts, order management, and the mathematics of trading.

Page by page, Brooks skillfully addresses how to spot and profit from trading ranges—which most markets are in, most of the time—using the technical analysis of price action. Along the way, he touches on some of the most important aspects of this approach, including trading breakouts, understanding support and resistance, and making the most informed entry and exit decisions possible. Throughout the book, Brooks focuses primarily on 5 minute candle charts—all of which are created with TradeStation—to illustrate basic principles, but also discusses daily and weekly charts. And since he trades more than just E-mini S&P 500 futures, Brooks also details how price action can be used as the basis for trading stocks, forex, Treasury Note futures, and options.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Series
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. List of Terms Used in This Book
  8. Introduction
    1. HOW TO READ THESE BOOKS
    2. SIGNS OF STRENGTH: TRENDS, BREAKOUTS, REVERSAL BARS, AND REVERSALS
    3. BAR COUNTING BASICS: HIGH 1, HIGH 2, LOW 1, LOW 2
  9. Part I: Breakouts: Transitioning into a New Trend
    1. Chapter 1: Example of How to Trade a Breakout
    2. Chapter 2: Signs of Strength in a Breakout
    3. Chapter 3: Initial Breakout
    4. Chapter 4: Breakout Entries in Existing Strong Trends
    5. Chapter 5: Failed Breakouts, Breakout Pullbacks, and Breakout Tests
    6. Chapter 6: Gaps
  10. Part II: Magnets: Support and Resistance
    1. Chapter 7: Measured Moves Based on the Size of the First Leg (the Spike)
    2. Chapter 8: Measured Moves Based on Gaps and Trading Ranges
    3. Chapter 9: Reversals Often End at Signal Bars from Prior Failed Reversals
    4. Chapter 10: Other Magnets
  11. Part III: Pullbacks: Trends Converting to Trading Ranges
    1. Chapter 11: First Pullback Sequence: Bar, Minor Trend Line, Moving Average, Moving Average Gap, Major Trend Line
    2. Chapter 12: Double Top Bear Flags and Double Bottom Bull Flags
    3. Chapter 13: Twenty Gap Bars
    4. Chapter 14: First Moving Average Gap Bars
    5. Chapter 15: Key Inflection Times of the Day That Set Up Breakouts and Reversals
    6. Chapter 16: Counting the Legs of Trends and Trading Ranges
    7. Chapter 17: Bar Counting: High and Low 1, 2, 3, and 4 Patterns and ABC Corrections
    8. Chapter 18: Wedge and Other Three-Push Pullbacks
    9. Chapter 19: Dueling Lines: Wedge Pullback to the Trend Line
    10. Chapter 20: “Reversal” Patterns: Double Tops and Bottoms and Head and Shoulders Tops and Bottoms
  12. Part IV: Trading Ranges
    1. Chapter 21: Example of How to Trade a Trading Range
    2. Chapter 22: Tight Trading Ranges
    3. Chapter 23: Triangles
  13. Part V: Orders and Trade Management
    1. Chapter 24: Scalping, Swinging, Trading, and Investing
    2. Chapter 25: Mathematics of Trading: Should I Take This Trade? Will I Make Money If I Take This Trade?
      1. THE TRADER'S EQUATION
      2. DIRECTIONAL PROBABILITY
    3. Chapter 26: Need Two Reasons to Take a Trade
    4. Chapter 27: Entering on Stops
    5. Chapter 28: Entering on Limits
    6. Chapter 29: Protective and Trailing Stops
    7. Chapter 30: Profit Taking and Profit Targets
    8. Chapter 31: Scaling Into and Out of a Trade
    9. Chapter 32: Getting Trapped In or Out of a Trade
  14. About the Author
  15. About the Website
  16. Index

Product information

  • Title: Trading Price Action Trading Ranges: Technical Analysis of Price Charts Bar by Bar for the Serious Trader
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: January 2012
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118066676