Kristine,
Cooper's book WAS worth a hundred bucks. In fact it was worth over $20K for me within a couple of weeks. It was the best (and simplest) trading book I've seen. However, I suspected the usefulness wouldn't last and it hasn't. I have since given back some profits with his his tecniques. I was probably one of the first to order the book. A couple of his techniques made a lot of sense to me and convinced me to enter trades that I thought were too risky prior to reading his book (A hard-cover manual). As you'd expect, as more and more people use his techniques, they simply don't work as much as before. In fact, I've actually started fading his techniques, and have seen some success. But overall, I've abandoned his methods for now.
There are about ten "set-ups." The interesting thing was that a few were very similar to my own. This gave me an ambivalent feeling. I felt reassured that a "successful" trader was also using patterns that I traded. These patterns (previous to Cooper's book) weren't in any books and not being used by anybody I knew (including SI). This feeling of reassurance was mitigated by the fear that Cooper's book will now make these patterns known by too many traders, thus rendering the techniques less potent. Don't misunderstand the previous statement. A stock that is strong isn't going to reverse course just because thousands of "Cooper Traders" are looking for it to continue.
However, what is expected to happen today or tommorrow may not happen for another week or two or more. In the meantime, as these traders abandon their positions, any prudent 'stops' along the way are taken out. The recent market correction probably contributed to the ineffectiveness of his set-ups. To what degree, I don't know. I also feel that the book is prabably best for traders that already have a good feel for the market and are already using similar techniques and ideas. I don't think a begginer (less than 3-5 years actively trading?) will get as much out of it.
I suspect that eventually as more and more people abandon his techniques, it will once again start to work again. This may take a year or more though, I guess.
Raschke's book - better than majority of the books I've read, but still not useful for short-term traders like me (1 day-2 weeks, but usually less than 3 days). It simply isn't very original or eye-popping. And most importantly, it doesn't work enough times (in real trades) for me to use them anymore.
I'll stop here since I hate to read more than 2 screen full per note.
Good Trading
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