This is one of the most poorly written technical books of any kind that I have ever read. I am quite sure that the author is fully conversant with candlestick charting. He is, however, not fully conversant with the English language and the demands of clear and concise writing.

The problems with this book are numerous. Here are the highlights:

1. Organization of book is incomprehensible and as useful as...well...you know. There is no rhyme or reason to the overall organization of the book.

2. General writing issues abound. I can barely find a coherent paragraph. Any good writer of technical material should understand the way in which people read, comprehend, and retain technical information. This author does not. Come on..the 3rd edition? This would imply the book has been edited. It has not.

3. The author sometimes describes something and then appears to contradict previous information. Again, I think this was an issue of no one of any competence as an editor actually read this book.

4. References to Nison and bar charts??? I bought this book I really did not buy it to hear what Nison had to say in his book. Otherwise I would have purchased Nison's book. Hmmm maybe I will now. Bar charts. The author seems to have a chip on his shoulder in that he constantly defends the superior quality of candlesticks over bar charts. I don't care. I did not buy this book to hear about the disadvantages of bar charts. I only need to know about candlestick charts.

5. The author routinely resorts to using technical jargon without defining the jargon. He assumes that you know all of the "buzzwords" he is using. I am sure that all of his friends nod in admiration when he speaks at parties but such pompous use of jargon in a book that he is selling is unforgivable.

6. The book is full of typos, format errors, capitalization errors, and punctuation errors.

What is also unforgivable is that the publisher let this piece of rubbish go to press without so much as one critical read of the material.

I did buy the Kindle version of this book, I hope I can return it. All I can think of is that if I had at least purchased the hard copy, I would have paper to start the fireplace on a cold winter's night.


So. Take a stand for literacy! Do not buy this book until they actually publish something that has been edited by a professional and competent technical editor.

I certainly appreciate the many hours these authors have taken to bring to me this work of historical and philosophical signifiance and interaction. Not a read for entertainment, but if technical analisis is your thing you will enjoy this work and keep it as I do for reference.

This 513 page large format softcover book thoroughly explains candlestick analyses of stock and commodity activity charts. It is not a book you can read over the weekend and begin using Monday. It requires serious study. The author dedicated much energy in learning about this form of market analysis that originated in Japan over a hundred years ago, and even traveled to Japan to interview master traders who utilized the method. From the preface: "This is a book that not only covers the basics, but offers more detail into exactly how to identify and use the patterns." It does.

Gregory L Morris is regarded as one of the gurus in the use of candlesticks in charting of stocks. The book is an excellent review of the different types of candlestick patterns. However, he makes the incredible statement on page 316: "With computers there is no way to handle the subjectivity that classic chart reading offers". This turned out to be nonsense, as Chapter 10 of the 3rd edition is devoted to the computerisation of candlestick patterns by Ryan Litchfield. Candlestick patterns had achieved a poor reputation because of such subjectivity. On the other hand, Litchfield states on p 392: " Candlesticks have been allowed to proliferate without proper perspective". Litchfield then systeamtically sets out to provide some perspective. He then commercialized his work, which can be seen on www.candlepower6.com. There are other sites which offer similar services including that provided by another candlestick guru Steve Nison www.candlecharts.com. Certainly the latter part of this book attemtps to overcome the poor reputation of candlesticks because of subjectivity of interpretation.

If you're already familiar with candlestick analysis, you'll still benefit from this book. The decomposition of multi-day charts, as well as the sentiment behind the indicators, was enlightening. The key take-away for me was to consider candlesticks an enhancement to other technical anaylsis, proving most valuable as sentiment indicators near support and resistance points. The added chapter for traders, authored by Litchfield, refined the data from prior chapters.

The material in this book is an excellent compliment to the traditional technical analysis methodology. I should have looked into using candlestick charting years ago. Combined, the two methods form an invaluable tool for the serious investor/trader.

This is not a book about theory and history of candlestick charts. He doesn't waste your time telling you what he thinks. Instead, this book gives specific results of candle patterns based on back-testing done by the author. He clearly defines each pattern discussed and then % of likelyhood of a reversal, continuation, and so forth. This is the kind of information that can be applied to your trading system to improve your profits.
Also look at Tharp's book, "Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom".

I had already read this book and Steve Nison's Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques.

If you want to buy a book about candlestick both books have the same content about all the candlestick patterns and the descrition about them.

Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques:
- has chapters about the relationship of candlestick with Volume, Support and Resistence, trendlines, Indicators (MACD,IFR,etc). This is VERY GOOD. Realy good.
- It has many examples discussed too. More than this book.

This book has:
- a chapter about Trading with Candlesticks that has content about trendlines, supports, etc.
- a lot of statistics of the patterns.

One great difference is that this book is easier to use. It has a standardized format for all the patterns with Commentary, Rules, Psychology Behind the Pattern, Flexibility, Pattern Breakdown, Related Patterns, Examples. This is VERY GOOD. It's only search the pattern and read what you want to know. It has a table with a resume about the pattern too.

Steve Nison's book isn't objective and it is not hands-on. You are reading an example, but... where is the picture?? You have to turn the pages searching the picture and them back to the curretly page to keep going. To do that for more than 300 pages is very, VERY BAD. Really. Trust me. You need to have a lot of patience.

Well, if you read one of these books, don't worry: you will know all about candlesticks. But this book is easier to use and to consult.
And it is cheaper than Steve Nison's book.

Abrax!!!

This book has everything you need to know about Candlestick charting. If you are interested in learning Candlestick charts and formations as a short term trading tool, look no further than this book.

David Colletti
Founder
StockTradersHQ.com

Mr. Morris has painstakingly explained an encyclopedia of candle patterns along with statistical data which helps to choose the most profitable and the most recurring candlestick patterns. Throughout the book, he has emphasised on the practicality of candlestick charting and to what extent should it be used. One of the major important features is the "Candlestick filtering" technique by the help of our present-day Western World technical indicators. The same helps to extract the best from the East and West.

I would suggest to Mr. Morris to add a section of Real time Charts so as to enable his readers to find out or pinpoint specific candlestick patterns (learnt from the book)and to understand to what extent the readers' surmise was correct.

I use candlesticks myself because they are visually superior to bar charts, but their value as a trading tool is very questionable. Because of that, I would've given this book a 1 star rating if it didn't contain some very interesting backtesting results. Ironically, these results show that even the best candlestick patterns yield short term returns that are so small that trading costs eliminate them.

An in depth review of Candlesticks, patterns and practical application to Technical Analysis for Investors. If you are really serious about trading and investing, this book is a must.

Great book, great content. You really need to absorb the direction of the method by reading this book 2 - 3 times. This isn't because of poor writing. This book is well written. It is due to the mindset required to fully understand the patterns for a novice like myself. I did find that it is one more tool to use to validate a trend or reversal. it has helped me with more than one profitable decision.

Morris' explanation of the candlestick system for analysis of stock price trends is very thorough and easy to understand. Remembering all of the patterns is a bit overwhelming, but you do begin to develop a sense of what the candlesticks are saying that eventually makes understanding the patterns easier.

I am quite surprised at how useful the book is for my trading. I'm currently a day trader that trades momentum. I have been starting to use Candlesticks in the last year or two to try to enhance my entries and exits. My profitable trade percentages are increasing and my trade exit timeliness is getting better (thanks to candlesticks). The whole candlestick concept was hard for me to swallow but the more I got into it, I realized it was a visual pattern recognition concept. The book does a great job of explaining all of the useful candlestick formations as well as backing the explanations up with examples. I really liked the second half of the book that did a very thorough statistical analysis of the candlestick signals over multiple timeframes. I learned alot from the book and will add its extensive data into my stock trading techniques. Well done....

Great book if you are learning about candlesticks as well as chart patterns: Reversal, continuations, etc. Detailed explanation, statistics and more...
I found it really helpful.

Great book if you are learning about candlesticks as well as chart patterns: Reversal, continuations, etc. Detailed explanation, statistics and more...
I found it really helpful.