Campaign Trading: Tactics and Strategies to Exploit the Markets

This book beats the theories of Max Adverse Excursion (how much a trade moves against you), Min and Max Favor Excursion (how much it moves in your direction) and then applies it to varying trending, non trending and reversal type of situations. The idea is that a winning trade is not likely to move very far against you. A losing trade is likely not to move very far in your favor. Therefore, one can uses these ideas to construct proper risk management and tweak their methods. I did find the book to be a bit wordy, often taking several chapters to explain a few points that could be summarized in two lines. There is also an interesting chapter about using options to hedge your position, rather than relying on stops. I give this book a strong 3 or a weak 4. There are certainly some good ideas, but isn't anything to write home about.

Even though John Sweeney is Tech Editor for Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities, I had rather low expectations, expectations which most books in this field fulfill nicely. Mssrs. Sweeney have presented an idea book which focuses on what to look for, what to look out for, and, in passing, saves the cost of a piece of software. What this book is not is a set of formulae showing how to make a million trading. Thank Heavens! The thrust of the book is to look at the phases a market can go through and to develop an approach for trading the phase now in evidence. Sweeneys also present concepts for turning a loss generated by a phase change into a profitable reversal. This concept builds on the authors' other work, Maximum Adverse Excursion. The concepts are fully explained and a methodology is used to illustrate each. The authors are careful to note that the method used may not be what they use and may not be optimum, but rather is presented for illustrative purposes.At the outset I thought this work appropriate for only intermediate and experienced traders. Now I'm not so sure. Beginning traders, if they go back to this work from time to time, may be able to save themselves some time and grief.I certainly recommend the book; I am uncertain whether I should post five stars or only four.ron davis,CMT