The Complete Trading Course provides aspiring traders with a detailed description of methods to analyze markets, spot profitable trading opportunities, and execute trades properly. Using a variety of approaches―such as Candlesticks, Elliott Wave, Dow Theory, and others―this book shows you how these methods overlap to identify tradable moments in the markets. Author Corey Rosenbloom skillfully explains how to identify trades based on price trend, momentum, and volatility―and how to make decisions confidently and maintain that confidence throughout the trade.

Author’s Note:

The Complete Trading Course progresses from a solid foundation of time-tested price principles through modern charting strategies into specific setups, and I recommend progressing through the book in the order I have arranged the material. I sought to answer the question “where do I begin in my analysis?” and have arranged the book with the answers unfolding in a journey through the material.

We begin our journey in Chapter 1 which outlines the foremost price principle on the importance of price trends, how to define these trends, what constitutes a true reversal, and how to frame the remainder of your analysis within the context of the trend structure. After learning how to recognize trends, Chapter 2 seeks to assess the health of a trend in motion by defining momentum and how it confirms a new trend and then disconfirms a mature trend. By learning how to identify momentum divergences, you can anticipate the end of a trend prior to the official reversal signal. Being a foundation principle, momentum’s leading edge also explains why we take certain specific trade setups that we do, and how momentum factors into price patterns. The last of the price principles, Chapter 3 details the Price Alternation Principle, which explains why some indicators work well in certain environments and then fail in others. The principle also lays the groundwork for range-trading, mean reversion trading strategies, which give rise to breakout strategies that can lead to large profits at the exact genesis of a new move in the market.

Part 2 focuses on modern-day strategies and charting tactics to compliment your analysis from the foundational price principles. Chapter 4 explains how to identify effective candle patterns on the charts, and contains a unique step-inside perspective of each candle pattern described, cutting to the heart of why the pattern is important. You will undoubtedly be familiar with some of the popular price patterns in Chapter 5, but I explain not just how to recognize and trade the pattern, but how the pattern derives its application from one of the foundation price principles described in Part 1.

I explain why it is not enough simply to recognize a pattern—particularly in today’s sophisticated markets. Much has changed in the more than 70 years since early chartists quantified these patterns. In Chapter 6, I explain how to draw Fibonacci retracement grids, how to find Fibonacci price confluence, and how a Fibonacci retracement grid assists your trade identification, entry, and exit decisions, all while keeping the examples current and simple to understand; Fibonacci analysis need not be complex. I conclude the section on modern-day strategies by explaining the Life Cycle of a Stock move, from accumulation through realization, and into the final stage of distribution, explaining insights into how professionals behave against the crowd at all stages. The chapter includes a quick description on how Elliott Wave complements Charles Dow’s original work on trends, and how both techniques combine in today’s world of active trading.

No book on trading strategies would be complete without a discussion on edge, execution tactics, trade setups, and how to put the information into practice in real-time under conditions of uncertainty and heightened emotion. Part 3 begins in Chapter 8 with a detailed discussion on risk management, edge optimization, trade execution tactics, and expectancy. Unlike other books on trading tactics, I explain the importance of combining these factors into a strategy that fits your unique personality, making a careful distinction between conservative and aggressive tactics in all the trades you take. Chapter 9 combines all that we have learned in The Complete Trading Course into the four components of every trade, as well as the two broad categories of trade setups and the four specific types of trade setups, all of which reduces the uncertainty of a trading decision into four categories of breakouts, retracements, reversals, or fades. The final chapter encourages you to use what you have learned and create your own specific trade setups with a discussion on how to do so, and a detailed explanation of the Impulse Buy trade, Impulse Sell, Cradle Buy trade, and Cradle Sell.

With a firm knowledge of basic price principles, specific trade strategies for today’s markets, information on edge and execution, and a clear discussion of trade setups, you will be fully equipped to take your trading to the next level and formulate your own personal strategies in your trading plan that lead you on your lifelong journey to trading success.