I bought both of this author's books on the recommendation of Amazon. The first book, the Complete TurtleTrader was the one that I read first. I wish I would have read them in reverse. Trend Following built up the story. After reading Trend Following I went back and read the Complete TurtleTrader again.

What made the book great? Well like most reading these types of books, I am a person who wants the most out of my money. I want my money to perform. The little girl in side of me still says that I can make serious money like the boys do. This book inspired me to make the most of what I can use.

Read it - but take my advice, read Trend Following first, Complete TurtleTrader second.

If you are looking for clear cut set of rules/strategy that you, the individual investor, can follow to make money, then look elsewhere. The trend followers solely follow the movement of the price in exclusion to everything else. They identify a trend - uptrend or downtrend - and play upon it. As noted in the book, they react to and not predict the prices.

The methods, far and few, explained in the book are definitely not suitable for me - the retail investor. First of all, I don't have access to a trading system that can follow the rules outlined. Second, I am not a trader in the strict sense myself, where trades are triggered by a system without me realizing what is happening. To perfect such a system would take me ages given that investing isn't my main bread winner. This book will pass off as a great text book in the annals of the Ivy League schools, but when it comes to making money for you, the individual investor again, I think you are better off reading the likes of Jesse Livermore, Nicolas Darwas and William O' Neal. Read the Lessons from the Greatest Stock Traders of All Time' by John Boik or any of William O'Neals books. They define clear cut rules that we can all follow and make money. How else would I have made about 80K in the past three years compared to the first 8 years of my investing where I barely made any.

There are a lot of anecdotes in the book - literally, every page has 2-3 of these. All of these may impress, but in the end they are nice to feel scholarly about. If you are a beginning investor, the first chapter -Trend following, all of 22 pages - lays the foundation by explaining the different schools of thought regarding investing. Then there is 55 pages outlining the great trend followers are their performance but never in clear and precise terms or rules what their methods are. It almost feels sycophantic reading about other 'great' beings the way it is written. At last, after reading almost 210 pages, I got to see some system of trading. All these are pretty dry.

This is possibly the only one exception to the many great investing books in my library that I could have borrowed from the library. You will be better off reading 'How to make money in stocks..' by William O' Neal again and again and again.

I own this book, I even recommend this book. But let me explain the 2 star rating....

While the book is a good history lesson, and shows how some of these guys make a lot of money, it's just not practical advice for the rest of us. I highly doubt that many of us have a billion dollar hedge fund to run.

Also, there are no real strategies in this book.

However, it did get me thinking in a different way. So for that, it is worth the money. (The main thing was to allow for larger swings against your position, allow the market a little more room than I did before.)

I know that this guy sells other products on his website, but to be honest, I don't see them being worth it. Most of this book is about defending trend traders, which is fine, but I wasn't attacking them in the first place.

I have begun to use the 4 hour chart more with his thinking, and I have to say it makes a little more sense. Not to get caught up in "micro-movements" as I call them. But to allow massive 300 pips swings against you on a weekly chart isn't practical for most of us.

So in conclusion, I think it's a good read, but if you get what I got out of it from my review, then it may or may not be worth the money.

If you want to read about trend followers you can get this book. But if you want books with trend following systems do not waste your money.

I discovered Michael Covel in a web search for "trading podcasts" and find his audio diatribes refreshing, inspiring, offering a real perspective on trading discipline.

A link to the podcast directory is at the turtletrader dot com web site, they are just a few minutes in length and worth your time.

At least listen to the one titled "Understand your emotions", it is worth your time and an important reminder to anyone running any amount of money.

Sometimes the author uses his audio forum to respond to negative reviews of his book, if you are listening for the first time, skip the rebuttal and sample another of his podcasts.

Disappointing. Long on theory and very short on practical advice. Not of much use to an individual investor. I would not recommend this book to someone looking for a "how to" book.

If your looking for information and possible techinques to add to your search for trends. Don't bother. This is a book about people who do. Interesting but not what I was looking for, I saw the bold Title and fell for it. It's also pretty dry stuff, I've read better bio's in Barrons.

I was sorely disappointed with this book. I bought it after quickly reading the cover, thinking that it was written by one of my trading mentors, "Mike Coval", but after I started reading it, I thought "Mike would never write this?". Then I realized what happened. I've read well over 50 trading books in the last two years, and this is one of the worst. There is only one I can think of that was worse than this one, but we won't go into that now. Anyway, spend your money elsewhere.

I bought this book based on the glowing reviews on Amazon and wish I could get back the time I wasted. Unless you have been living under a rock and have never heard of John Henry,Ed Seykota and other trend followers, there is nothing revealing in this book. The is no insight on how you can use trend following strategies to profit. It reads like an infomercial. You keep reading chapter after chapter wondering is there anything of substance that will come next. If you want insights from a real turtle trader read Curtis Faith's "Way of the Turtle". Mr. Covel is a promoter of Trend following and the Turtles methodology(not to mention systems he has for sale). Big difference.

This second edition not only has good bones but there is plenty of meat. If you are serious about increasing your wealth in a consistent manner over the long term in a rather mundane fashion, then buy, read and implement this book! After a six year hiatus, my passion for trading has been reignited. Excellent charts and data back up his claims.

This is a fluffy little book whose theme seems to be Trend Trading = GOOOOOD! Skip the book, go directly to turtletrader dot com which is the author's OTHER business. See what's there, see if you want to send him some money without taking the time to pore over this book. Ever since I bought this book I have been getting JUNK MAIL from the author trying to get more money out of me.

What is trend following? If the price is rising, buy, if the price is declining sell. That covers all the mechanics of trend following discussed in this book. I appears to me that some of those big-name reviewers did NOT read this book.
"Trend Following is Good" is the theme of this book, and if you are interested in learning more about the mechanics of 'trend-following', there are several subtle PLUGS for the author's website which for an additional fee you can subscribe to something or buy stuff from him. I am already getting snail-mail spam from the author Michael Covel advertising his website (in case I missed the plugs in his book I guess). Take the kids to the zoo or museum, don't spend your money or time on this one. I would be returning this book but for the scratched cover.
Chet

This book's sub-title says, "How Great Traders Make Money in Up or Down Markets."

The content of this book falls far from delivering its promise. The cover of this book promises that it will show you how to apply trend following techniques to your trading. "Covel walks you through the process, one step at a time, in plain English." He certainly does no such thing.

If you are looking for a trend-following system, you will not find it in this book; nor will you find any help or guidance in how to go about developing your own trend following system.

As someone who trades for a living, I found nothing between the covers of this book applicable to improving real-world trading results.