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Strategies & Market Trends : Gann's cycles -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: High Grader who wrote (136)	12/5/2000 10:42:00 AM
From: John Pitera	Respond to of 191

Has anyone here read Connie Brown's book "Technical Analysis for the Trading Professional?" . I have not read it but I can see your concerns that Ms Brown does not divulge key info is also the theme of this frustrated Amazon reviewer of the book: ~~~~~13 of 15 people found the following review helpful: A Teaser Not a Pleaser, August 26, 2000 Reviewer: A reader from Beverly Hills, CA USA This book promises to take you into the Promised Land of traderdom but leaves you in the desert. It's up to you to find the water. The author may give you some pointers as to where you might find it but you may easily die of thirst trying to get there. At best, this an introduction to the author's trading methodology. It broadly covers her different techniques: Elliot Wave used in conjunction with oscillators, Fibonacci price projections and retracements, Gann time and price analysis, reverse engineering of indicators to project price. Sounds good doesn't it? Well don't hold your breath. The author keeps the secret of the Holy Grail to herself. If you want the answers, you will have to take her seminars or subscribe to her service. Just to give you a sense of what I mean: One chapter is entitled "Price Projections by Reverse-Engineering Indicators". You get four pages of excruciating detail on how to export into excel, but when it comes to how she actually reverse engineers the indicator she writes, "Just know that some reverse-engineering projections require you to know the indicator formula and to have Excel generate the results, rather than just plugging in the indicator values from Trade station." How does she do it? She hired professional programmers to do it for her. Yes, that's all very well but then what do we need the book for and why are we paying her? Then there is the infamous Composite Index indicator so essential to her system. It has been repeatedly commented on in the other reviews here. She repeatedly promises to discuss the formula in various parts of the book and a whole chapter is devoted to it. The author writes, "By now you are probably trying to find the formula for the Composite Index". No such luck. Instead, you get, "Forgive my inconveniencing you, but look toward the Aerodynamic Investments Web site... for the outcome of this sticky dilemma." What a tease! And those aren't the only secret keys she keeps. In the chapter on Gann you find that all the wisdom of Gann is useless for trading indexes unless you possess certain secret conversion factors unknown by the general public, but which were revealed in some letters of Gann possessed by a friend of the Author. These documents were mysteriously destroyed upon his death. "All my attempts to acquire them or to have them preserved failed.," she writes. At any rate she's not revealing the conversion factors. Later she writes, "While the revelation that a conversion factor is used will understandably discourage some of you from going further and tempt you to skip the remaining chapter..." and then tries to lure you in with "So hang in there as this discussion has only scratched the surface. Besides, aren't you curious about the fourth dimension within the pyramid that I passed over so quickly in the beginning of this chapter? Good. Thought that might work. Onward." But all the reader gets on the pyramid is three scanty sentences in a paragraph in which the author states that there are three dimensions in a Pyramid. But hold your horses, there is also a fourth dimension: time. "It is Gann's Master Calculator or Square of 52," the author states. This fourth dimension can be derived from the Pyramid, but here the author leaves you ruminating once again this time about how to divine the mystical qualities of the Pyramid. You will never know. Ah, but isn't that why we bought the book in the first place, to find out what we will never know? Don't think to transgress the portals of the Temple of Giseh. The High Priestess is there to bar your way.~~~~~ ------------ This review is better from a different reader, ~~~~Reviewer: Sean W. Hunt from Sausalito, CA I've been a trader for about ten years and have spent thousands of dollars on trading books - most of which have proven to have little or no useful content. That's certainly not the case with this book of Connie Brown's which provides alot of new thinking about indicators/oscillators and how we view and actually use them. More importantly the reader is challenged to think about what their favorite indicator is actually telling them at any point in time. Her discussion of the information a plain vanilla 14 period RSI can actually divulge is, in itself, well worth the price. The work on price projection and targets is extremely useful and has had a major positive impact on my trading. As an added bonus, the author shares some new indicators of her own creation and provides the reader with the "easy language" code for TradeStation. There's an awful lot of information in this book and it does take some time to digest. I've found something new and worthwhile every time I pick it up. You will definitely not find a re-hash of the same old stuff. Highly recommended!~~~~~