Rating: - method of trading successfully
is not found here. Wordy beyond tears. Could have easily been 100 pages instead of 600. A mere pretender to the classic by Magee and Edwards.

Tedium must be the Bulkowski philosophy. I really felt he did little to clarify any technical view what-so-ever. Every page is an endurance test of what's his point and where to find it. It promises theme, but delivers anecdotes.

Loaded with questionable statistics, methodology and wordiness any reasonable trader can only come away with a feeling that this book was written for the sole purpose of making the author a buck.

What this book lacks in originality it makes up for in a scholarly pomp. Perfect for a non traders library.

The patterns are previous, The tactics non profit. This would be the last book in my trading library.

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Rating: - Verbose
This one is a comnplete snoozer-- you'll quickly realise that the author knows how to type, but does he know how to write? It depends, if you like what normally would take one paragraph stretched into three pages this book is for you.

Fwiw, Bulkowski writes a decent column in T/A of stocks and Commodities Magazine for which I'm assume they've capped his long winded behaviour.

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Rating: - Very indepth and good use of statistics
As a trader myself I am always on the lookout for books and materials that do not tout get rich quick strategies. Mr. Bulkowski takes a very methodical and usefull approach in collecting many common and some exotic chart formations and then documenting how identify, trade, and ultimately reveal their statistical performances. One feature I found pricesless was the visual index in which you can match a formation visually and then figure out what it is called to read more about it. I highly recommend this book for people who are looking for a excellent chart formation book.

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Rating: - Outstanding Source of Information
This book definitely serves it's purpose. I'm not sure how anyone could give it less than 5 stars. Of those who rated it lower, they seem to want someone to give them "The Holy Grail". With 43 chart patterns, it would have been impossible for Mr. Bulkowski to study the effects of support/resistance lines, low-cap vs. blue chip, etc. lest he end up with an 8,000 page tome. He assumes that each individual reader will be able to take the information given, and create their own testing to suit their individual needs. Impossible to put down once you start reading it.

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Rating: - Mark Twain said it best
There are many flaws to this book & most of them Bulkowski admits. The first is the sample is cherry picked based on fundamentals which TB never gives out. The second is that while TB is obviously familiar with stats (he mentions the terms freq distribution & population enough that at least a passing idea of them is true) he dwells on the sample of 500 stocks over 5 years and gives us a population of X. Well that's a bit bogus as most PATTERNS take longer than a day to create (forget this hanging man thing, it's minor) so if you average out the span of a pattern creation, which is the true size of a sample not the one day of data, that he is using. Finally this books data was from only one market, a baby bull market, whether the stats quoted would hold up in a bear or a mature bull is questionable. I for sure wouldn't be able to extrapolate that based on what's given.

I'd recommend the source instead, Edwards & Magee, Technical Analysis of Stock Trends & for those interested in indicators/gann/elliott waves, Connie Browns Aerodynamic Trading.

On the plus side, it is very complete though the kook-sounding review about trendlines and support has a point; a lot of TB's work could have been done with Fib Retracement levels. Still if you are really into patterns you cannot pass it by though realize it's a starter in your analysis not a complete foundation. The 'Sample Trade' section is a real waste; there is not enough information other than pattern formation for you to do your own analysis. If you read the Identifcation section and the first summary paragraph you probably have gotten all you need out of the 46 chapters and saved yourself a lot of time.