The best technical analysis books. I have read some and plan to read more in 2020. Read them if you wish to be a uber-successful trader and Investor in 2020.
When it comes to trading or investing, I am a fan of keeping up with the process of educating myself. Books are my best choice for the process. So here I am updating the list of books I compiled in 2011 with the best technical analysis books available that every trader and investor should consider reading in 2020.
One can argue, why investors should consider technical analysis books. Isn’t the fundamental analysis more suited to them?
The answer is NO.
Nothing changes in companies on a minute to minute basis. My definition of technical analysis is a process to be able to know how other fellow traders and investors are thinking about a particular stock. Once you combine the technical analysis to invest in fundamentally sound companies, one can make the most of their invested money.
So, I believe, every trader should consider the fundamentals of the company and vice versa.
Without much ado, let me share the best books for technical analysis.
The Best Technical Analysis Books
Here are some of the books on technical analysis that I have read and recommended to anybody who wants to be trading in the market.
1. Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets
If you want to read only one book on technical analysis, it has to be the Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by John Murphy. It is considered as the bible of technical analysis and rightly is the best book on technical analysis.
I have no hesitation in saying that it is the best investment I have ever made on myself by buying this book. I was hesitant considering the price but take my word, you will not be disappointed.
Even if you don’t want to be taking my word, check out some of the reviews on Amazon India. You won’t find a single negative review of the book.
Best and Most Helpful Review on Amazon India
Look Guys if you are thinking to buy any book on Technical analysis then this is excellent book for anyone. This book contain all the aspect and if you read it in the way it is then believe me afterwards you don’t have to buy any technical analysis course this book itself is a wonderful course. And please Buy Hardcover book that’s little bit of cost but believe me this book is value to money. Images uploaded see the quality of pages in Hardcover as compared to Paperback
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2. Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management
If you want to add one more book to your library of books on technical analysis, it has to be Trading for a Living by Alexander Elder.
Note, there are a couple of books by the same name. The other one is Study Guide for Trading for a Living by the same author with a very similar book cover. I purchased the study guide by mistake and then went for the Trading for a Living book. Don’t make the same mistake and order the correct book.
Best and Most Helpful Review on Amazon India
Book is a good mix of trading system (technical and fundamental), money management & emotions involved in trading. First part of d book on the role of psychology and the second part on charting and technical analysis are detailed and therefore necessary for anyone serious about trading.
Worst Review on Amazon India
It is hard to read an old book on Kindle. The diagrams do not show in the page where they are referenced. I recommend that you buy a print version of this book. You will have to make notes and revisit many of the concepts highlighted. It will be hard to follow it on Kindle.
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3. Right Stock At Right Price for Right Time
I will also recommend my book as well. For those who want to get my book, I will be offering them lifetime free access to the DIY Technical Analysis forum.
Best Review on Amazon India
It is very interesting and helpful for all types of investors/trader including beginners. It guides the investors who want to make smart investments. It describes choosing stocks using various research tools. We can understand the timing of the entry and exit points of the stock. Choosing strong fundamentally stock means half work is done. Then the investor can think about the timing of entry to that stock. Now I can minimize my mistakes and loss too. Thanks so much to write.
Investors/Traders can get avail of this book. I highly recommend this book to those who want to understand investing/trading in the stock market.
Worst Review on Amazon India
Leaves much to be desired but still has a lot of insight into the subject.
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4. How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times and Bad
An Amazon.com bestseller with over 2 million copies sold has to be one of the better books on technical analysis. Some of my readers have recommended the book but I am yet to order it. Is in my list of books to order soon.
Best Review on Amazon India
Detailed charts with proper explanation for the last 100 years stock market winners. CANSLIM stands out as the best investing methodology. Excellent book for someone serious about making money in markets in the long run.
Worst Review on Amazon
This is the worst investment book I have ever read. The title is extremely misleading and inaccurate. It should be named… “Everything the world’s greatest investor of all-time advises you NOT to do”. There is not one thing that agrees with Warren Buffetts, Ben Grahams, or David Dodd’s principles of investing.
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5. The Art and Science of Technical Analysis: Market Structure, Price Action, and Trading Strategies
Best Review on Amazon
Grimes provides nothing less than a complete methodology for analyzing price action. His book is exhaustive and rigorous but organized in such a meticulous manner that there’s refreshing simplicity to his presentation, which is just crystal clear on every topic. Grimes is willing to acknowledge and confront the issue of randomness with careful consideration, which I think is something most traders would often rather not acknowledge. It’s alarming how frequently EMH is either ignored or casually dismissed in trading literature. The very notion of price randomness was a full-on system-shock to my psychology early in my trading days. If you are a new trader, deal with it, and deal with it early. This book will help with that and will absolutely refine your thinking. It’s a gift and it may frankly be the best primer on Technical Analysis ever written. I have never read anything better.
Worst Review on Amazon
Maybe it’s because of my engineering background. I find the explanation quite wordy and before I can extra the key point I just got lost in the words due to a lack of attention span. The actual content may be great nevertheless.
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6. Trading Price Action Trends: Technical Analysis of Price Charts Bar by Bar for the Serious Trader
Best Review on Amazon India
This book enables one to independently analyze the charts based on pure candlestick price action without any dependency on additional indicators. This is an in-depth coverage to take the trading skills to the next level. As the title suggests, it’s for Serious traders who wish to develop their skills and take better decisions during intraday or swing trading.
Worst Review on Amazon India
The book is really as if someone has written a thesis. The publisher should know that the book was meant to be read by humans and not robots that they can just grasp all the information without any proper structure/presentation. No summary…no important bullet points. Disappointing.
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7. Understanding Price Action: Practical Analysis of the 5-Minute Time Frame
Best Review on Amazon
What Bob Volman is saying is simple. Trading increases our irrational behavior. Traders lose because they are not rational, they are driven by desire. They are afraid or euphoric based on their last few trades. They don’t see each trade as unique with 50:50 probability like flipping a coin, they must be right every time and will hold losers too long, let winners turn into losers or become fearless and bet the house. According to Mark Douglas in “Trading in the Zone”, trading is like a casino. One spin of the roulette wheel can be a loser for the casino, but the odds are stacked in its favor and over the long run, consistency wins. If you read Bob Volman’s book, where each word is a gem, and understand it, then you will have an edge and over the long run, you will be a winner. Take it from me because I exchanged several emails with the author and each time he answered within a day.
Worst Review on Amazon India
I’ve read this and Volman’s Forex Price Action Scalping (which I’ll duplicate this review in) books a few times each, but don’t think I could ever really understand, let alone duplicate what he’s writing about. And I’m not really sure just what he’s writing about because what he says, for example, about a chart just doesn’t show on that chart… And he is so full of himself that you just can’t get anything concrete from reading this stuff. For example, in Forex Price Action Scalping, he rambles on like this so much, I just can’t believe he trades: “… And if we ourselves can display irrational tendencies even in the calmest and non-threatening surroundings, as we often do, then we are best advised not to picture ourselves beyond such follies when under pressure in a live market environment. (p. 234)” Really? I have a B.S. in physics, have spent 30 years as a senior business applications software developer, and a student of the markets for even longer than that, and I have absolutely no clue as to what he’s trying to say.
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8. Technical Analysis For Dummies
Best Review on Amazon
I am not new to investing but am a beginner in day trading, technical analysis, and the forex market. Now I’ve read several books on those subjects. I read Day Trading for Dummies which was OK, basic, and kind of what I expected. TA for Dummies was more than I expected for a Dummies book. It covers loads of the important indicators, is well-written and easy to follow, and offers lots of clear, understandable charts that illustrate the point well. I know these technical indicators are complicated and there is much more to each of them, but I agree with other reviewers – if you are a beginner trying to learn technical analysis, this is an excellent place to start!
Worst Review on Amazon
I want to like this book more than I do. I appreciate the author’s friendly and no-nonsense tone. Although I’m a beginner, she seems to know what she’s talking about. But I strongly object to how the book is organized. For the first 70 pages, she hints at indicators and approaches, constantly saying “I’ll explain this in Chapter 4, I’ll explain that in Chapter 11.” So, you learn very little, but have high hopes for chapters ahead.
Then, she jumps deep into the vagaries of backtesting, without having shown you how to do something a little more elementary, like draw a support line. Like I said, I’m a beginner; I’d never even heard of backtesting, and I really didn’t want to wallow within a mysterious and unidentified piece of software before the author showed me how to recognize a resistance line. Hello? Plus, some of the charts could use quite a bit more labeling, and one so far seems to be missing.
Hopefully, if I read this book two or three times, I’ll squeeze out of it what she put in, but the organization is frankly infuriating.
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9. Technical Analysis: The Complete Resource for Financial Market Technicians
Best Review on Amazon
I am a 30 year “buy and hold” style investor who is entering the world of short term trading. This is the third book I’ve read on technical analysis and the best. This book provides an easy to understand overview of most technical analysis techniques. It took me about 4 months (at about an hour per day) to read the book. This included a significant amount of time spent comparing the information in the book to other popular sources of technical trading information and reviewing some of the references provided in the book.
While this is an excellent book, it does have several deficiencies, some probably related to the fact that it was written as a college textbook. First, it has some complex charts that are not well explained. Including an explanation with each chart, as is done in Edwards and Magee, would have been helpful. Second, for many technical analysis techniques, they provide information on the success rate of the technique. For other techniques, they don’t. It would be valuable to get their opinion on the value of every technique discussed. Third, they don’t provide data sources for some of the technical analysis techniques discussed. Some of the data sources they do provide are very expensive, or only available to institutional investors. Fourth, It would be nice to have access to the correct answers at the end of each chapter. For obvious reasons, they couldn’t do this.
Worst Review on Amazon
The book is written in the style of a college-level textbook. The subtitle indicates the text is intended to be a “complete resource for financial market technicians.” In general, the information presented is thorough and logically sequenced beginning with a narrative about the history and emergence of technical analysis. Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist are efficient writers, so the material is easily read with most concepts/indicators clearly and sufficiently described. The page layout is very good and this helps keep the reader focused throughout reading/study sessions.
I have two primary complaints. Though the printing is high-quality, the paper weight is very thin. It was surprising to leaf through a 672-page reference book and encounter pages that are so light-weight and insubstantial. In this respect, the book felt really cheap. I realize other readers, perhaps the majority, may not share my personal dislike for the thin paper. The biggest issue, and the one that prevents me from recommending this book, is the completely botched index. A book of this breadth requires a proper and robust index. The actual index is a token effort, surprisingly incomplete and inadequate for fully searching and finding convenient topical references. The publisher made a bad decision to cut the editing budget, choosing not to provide a detailed index suitable for a complete reference, library type of book. Before the next edition is published, hire a professional researcher/indexer to do the job right! Until then, the book is not worthy of the price and prospective readers may wish to consider alternate titles.
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10. Technical Analysis Explained: The Successful Investor’s Guide to Spotting Investment Trends and Turning Points
Best Review on Amazon
The book does a nice job of covering the topics and gives some very sound explanations of the concepts. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in technical analysis. It is not perfect, but I think it’s among the best I have read. My only real complaint is that the book is physically badly made. Its too thick and has a rigid spine, so I was literally breaking the spine to open the pages completely and the paper is cheap and translucent, so highlighting just makes a mess of the other side of the page. The publisher knew better than to produce this way. That aside, the info is great. I recommend the book.
Worst Review on Amazon
A very comprehensive book on technical analysis. For a topic with a lot of technical jargon, the author explains it in a relatively digestible manner. The book could have done a better job synthesizing the info and provide insights into the most effective analysis methods.
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11. Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns
Best Review on Amazon
The book is well worth the price. It outlines 63 trends and gives statistics for each one. He writes well and describes each one with tactics to improve your odds and what to lookout for. The picture is just the preface of a chapter. Each chapter includes 20-30 pages of analysis and advice. Also, the book is made out of quality material and seems like it’ll easily last for years.
Worst Review on Amazon
I have traded on and off for the past 15 years. This book seems to be written by a trader who could not trade to well and just sold a bunch of crap under a title that would WOW people that had some experience in trading but not necessarily very experienced themselves at trading.
Chart patterns do work, the ones I have read of in the past. This book seems made to catch people’s attention to a sale.
Gotta make money from trading somehow.
Perhaps others will see something in this book that I am missing. I think it is a bit overpriced for the title it was given. Rember, this is one persons interpretation of what chart patterns look like. I certainly do not think it should be called an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia to me implies some confirmed or shared knowledge, not just the opinions of one writer. I bought it, however, I feel like I fell for a scam.
I want my money back. The book is still in great condition.
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12. Getting Started in Technical Analysis
Best Review on Amazon India
One of the best books to kick off your trading education. Simple, lucid and goes like a story/narrative for any newbie/novice to start. While this book might not encapsulate trend patterns extensively (which could have made this best in class) but its fun to understand. Follow up this book with Thomas N.Bulkowski on Chart Patterns and Steve Nison on Candlestick Charting. By the end of these 3 books, you will have a lot of confidence in your trading setups. Have fun and make bank 🙂
Worst Review on Amazon
The prevailing guidance of the book is that traders “need to experiment to see what works” (this phrase is found numerous times in the book). Then why read the book? The author doesn’t really offer anything useful to the reader that isn’t found in works by other authors. In the first paragraph of Chapter 14 I discovered why: “For obvious reasons, this book will not offer detailed descriptions of the best trading systems I have designed”. So, everything the author includes in the book is just the second best! Don’t waste time studying this book; the author is not interested in helping you!
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13. Technical Analysis from A to Z
Best Review on Amazon
Extremely pleased with the purchase and reading experience. The book covers everything I know about and much more that I didn’t. I was able to make oscillators, from the explanations given, on excel and was able to make the charts. The Chande Momentum Oscillator is an added, and needed, a tool for my analysis for investment. I bought this book because it was the one called out in the Yahoo charts trying to explain the Stoch Oscillator; which, I wanted to understand, and now do.
Worst Review on Amazon
When this book arrived, the first thing that I did was to read about ADX, some rationale about it, how to calculate it, etc. What did I find? Half a page about “interpretation” no only about ADX, but also about +DI, -DI, DX, and ADXR. Nevertheless, that wasn’t the worse, when I told to myself: “well, how can I calculate it”, I found that I must purchase the “A to Z Companion Spreadsheet” to learn how to do it. I am very disappointed. Considering that was my first experience with this book, I don’t know what else surprises I will find.
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Final Thoughts
Which is your favorite book from the lot? Help others with your views to help them buy a good book in 2020.
And finally, did I miss any of the books? Do let me know and I will be more than happy to add the book to the list and read it as well.
