Thomas N. Bulkowski - Encyclopedia of chart patterns

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• Encyclopedia of Candlestick Charts, the definitive reference book covering 103 types of candlestick patterns and their performance.
• Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns, Second Edition, a reference book reviewing 53 chart and 10 event patterns packed with performance information, identification guidelines, failure rates, trading tactics, and more.
• Fundamental Analysis and Position Trading: Evolution of a Trader, a primer about value investing and adding market timing to a buy-and-hold strategy using position trading.
• Getting Started in Chart Patterns, Second Edition, a popular, low-cost choice for learning about chart patterns.
• Swing and Day Trading: Evolution of a Trader, explains how to use chart patterns to swing and day trade, including major reversal times for day traders, plus the opening range breakout and opening gap setups.
• Trading Basics: Evolution of a Trader, discusses money management, stops, support, resistance, and offers dozens of tips every trader and investor should know, in an easy-to-read and understand book.
• Trading Classic Chart Patterns provides a simple-to-use scoring system to improve the selection of chart patterns that work.
• Visual Guide to Chart Patterns, an easy-to-use guide which shows how to recognize chart patterns, understand why they behave as they do, and what their buy and sell signals mean, presented on color charts.

Thomas Bulkowski

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Copyright 2016 by Thomas Bulkowski. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

ISBN 978-1-119-27490-2 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-119-27491-9 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-119-27492-6 (ePub)

To Donna McCormick.

Abundant intelligence,

A kind soul,

A giving heart,

Wrapped in a frail body.

She is discovered treasure.

I used to think chart patterns were the footprints of the smart money. Now I believe the definition should include the dumb money, too, and everyone in between.

When I trade a stock, others are doing the same. We move price up or down, depending on how strongly we want to buy or sell. If enough of us buy a stock with enthusiasm and continue to buy, we force the stock to trend upward. Prolonged aggressive selling forces the stock down. That buying and selling creates patterns on the price chart, patterns that we see repeatedly.

Chart patterns have been around for decades. I expect them to be around in the coming decades, too, because the forces of buying demand and selling pressure will still be present to shape the charts. Machines may change the dynamics, but human emotion will still be there to leave the footprints.

The idea for this book came in the form of a question. What happens after I buy a stock showing a chart pattern?

Answering that question for 20 chart patterns took two years. The result is this reference book.

Most books focus on what triggers a buy. Fewer books focus on what happens next. I used 43,229 chart patterns pulled from bull markets to uncover the secrets to what happens after buying a stock. The results help select better buy signals so you have an increased chance of making money and avoiding disaster. All you have to do is match your setup to one of the configurations illustrated in this book.

Most chapters follow the same layout so using this reference book is easier, too. The Behavior at a Glance section illustrates how a chart pattern behaves, with the most important performance statistics right on the charts.

Identification Guidelines follow so even people new to chart patterns will know what to look for. And with almost 370 stock charts and illustrations, you have plenty of examples.

Next comes the Buy and Sell Setups, backed by statistics that describe how well they work.

The Best Stop Locations tell how often a stop in a chart pattern will trigger. That alone is worth the price of this book.

The section on Configuration Trading