Richard W Schabacker's great work, Technical Analysis & Stock Market Profits represents one of the finest works ever produced on Technical Analysis. It is as alive, vital and instructional today, as the day it was written.
This is a must for any traders library. The kind of book you can make reference to as you progress through your trading.
Some of the sections were meant for complete beginners but mostly the techniques and studies in this book are timeless and valuable to every level of trader.
I was contemplating whether to buy this book or Edwards and Magee's, but decided to go for this instead as i heard many mentions by many traders, especially Linda Raschke that this is THE go-to TA 'bible' and that the other is largely based on this book.
I took a long time finishing this book because i wanted to take my time, slowly digesting its content page by page, pattern by pattern & chart by chart and i must say that this is a very comprehensive book on Technical Analysis. In terms of the reading experience and the overall structure of the book, i would say that it is very comprehensible. Each patterns is divided into sections (Eg, reversals, continuation, gaps, trend lines, etc) and followed by many charts of common stocks and some of bonds/commodities. You will be required at the later parts of the book to refer to earlier charts, (which i find incredibly helpful to write the page number for future references).
At the very end of the book you will find a dedicated chapter about trading psychology, types of orders, paper trading, why charts are not infallible, etc which i also find helpful. At the end of the day, reading this book will not make you a profitable trader if that is what you're hoping for, but is instead a great reference book and still very much relevant even in today's markets.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
A must-read for any stock market enthusiast. The book takes you through the basic tenets of technical analysis. The book is illustrated with hand-made stock charts (because of lack of digital mediums back then). Despite being written in 1932, the principles laid out are very much applicable today. The best aspect of the book is the way the author has attempted to explain the patterns that emerge in stock charts. This helps the reader have conviction in a trade and understand better the behavior of markets