Trades About to Happen: A Modern Adaptation of the Wyckoff Method

If you are a serious trader and building your chart skills, this is the BEST resource I have found! I am beyond the simple explanations and simple chart patterns, and have needed some real "meat" to chew on regarding what is going on and why it is happening -- as I plan and place my trades and watch the charts intently. I am a day trader. SO I am interested in the "skinny" behind moves as they develop, and why market behavior takes a certain form. This is the most terrific book to read and to study. The Preface author [guru Dr. Alexander Elder] suggests that the book will need to be slowly digested, because their really is a lot of good, sound knowledge to be gleaned from the book author David Weis. He tells you to expect to go slow. Heck, I planned to race right through it. NOT. I am reading and rereading and re-rereading the chapter called "The Story of the Lines". My page markups have markups. There is SO MUCH to every idea being discussed that illuminate the charts, you can't put it down. A trader [the author] is talking to a trader [the reader]. The discoveries on every page make this your most valuable companion. I love this book and the help it is giving me to see the action in the charts in a way it enhances and improves all my trades.

I found this book very readable, and dense with valuable information. To get the full value from the text, I read the book a chapter at a time. After each chapter, I stopped reading for a week or so to practice on live charts. I did this until I felt I thoroughly understood the principles in the chapter. To compensate for the unfortunate layout of the book, I went to the author's site at weisonwyckoff.com and used the contact form to request full sized copies of the book charts. This gave me readable charts that I could follow as I went through the text.This book really helped clarify the Wyckoff principles that I had learned from other books, particularly the VSA book Master the Markets by Tom Williams. I found David Weis adept at thoroughly explaining complex principles. His educational style reminded me of the excellent articles by Jim Forte.This book also contains a discussion of the Weis Wave, an original design by the author. In many ways, this indicator does for volume what candlesticks do for tick data. It makes volume action evident at a glance.I highly recommend this book for those learning to master Wyckoff techniques. I would say that it is the most important book in my trading library, next to Mastering the Trade by John F. Carter.

This is a book about anticipation and intuition written for discretionary traders in any market. The title refers to "setups" as they are known in the trade. Setups are price and volume behavior, as shown on a bar chart, that the trader interprets in terms of subsequent directional movement in order to profit from same. Anticipation is the name of the game. The Wycoff Method described in this book is a means of identifying high-probability trades on the basis of various chart setups. Also described in detail is a modern version of tape reading. The author is a successful trader and educator using the methods described.The book starts with a clear graphic entitled "Where to Find Trades" showing a stock chart with annotations at key trade-entry points using terms described in the book in detail such as Upthrust, Spring, Breakout, Absorption and more. The book starts with a description of "how to draw lines," one of the simpler concepts that traders use, but a technique often used inconsistently. Further, the interpretation of lines of support, resistance and trend are shown to convey a great deal of information to the trader who knows how to read them. Once drawn, price behavior relative to the lines forms the basis for a tradeable setup. "They tell a story and make price-volume behavior stand out," says the author. He continues, "turning points often occur at the nexus of lines." That gives a clue about how setups develop. Even experienced traders may benefit from these insights.One particular aspect of this author's writing style appeals to me. That is his balanced approach when summarizing each method. He frequently reminds the reader that "anything can happen" despite the formation of a seemingly-promising setup. I do not see this as a cop-out, but rather as the voice of experience. Developing a trading system or methodology is an exercise in probabilities, and it is the wise trader who reminds himself of this every day.The discussion of "Springs" is quite interesting. Springs are strong upward-reversals from a downtrend. "I know of no better trading strategy than the Spring...," he says. Again, he goes into considerable detail about how to identify a Spring, and how to validate it via price action. The chapter on Absorption (an interpretive term describing certain types of weakening trend action, up or down) is also informative. A chapter on "Chart Studies" combines all of the individual setups found in the first seven chapters. The last portion of the book is focused on tape reading and point-and-figure charts. The author readily admits that working through a minute-chart of a trading day is "terribly tedious," but asserts that his years of focus on the tape at this micro level "provides a tremendous edge." This, he says, is how you develop your trader's intuition.Some desirable things are missing in this book. Discussions on how to actually trade a setup are quite limited. Where do you place your entry order (stop, limit or market)? Where do you place your stop? What if subsequent price action causes you to question the setup you think you saw? The lack of attention to this aspect of trading the Wycoff Method is unfortunate. The book has no glossary. Many of the terms are not widely used in the trading literature, and some that are have special meaning under the Wycoff Method. The author references quite a few books via footnotes, yet there is no Bibliography in the back of the book. The index is minimal.In summary, this book is clearly written by an expert in the method. It contains information valuable to traders of all levels. I rate it four stars, with one knocked off for the omissions noted above.