Tom Dorsey's Trading Tips: A Playbook for Stock Market Success

Well worth the money if you are a proponent of point and figure charting. Tom gives practical advice on applying p & f. It is a good addition to his other book on p & f charting. Has many practical tips.

Tom Dorsey and the other authors run the Dorsey, Wright & Associates investment advisory service. This book does a very good job of outlining and reviewing the point and figure based investment approaches they use. I am an individual investor and have been subscribing to their service for two years. This book gives a good review of their overall "game plan" for making money during the good times, and preserving it in the downturns. I'd recommend it to other DWA subscribers. Additionally, this book is much easier to read than Tom's point and figure book. This book is well edited and sticks to the topic. While this book may be of interest to non-subscribers, the bullish percent and relative strength techniques presented are specific to the DWA methodology and subscription web site.

With "Tom Dorsey's Trading Tips," Mr. Dorsey accomplished two things: he wrote a great brochure for his money management/investment advisory firm, Dorsey, Wright, & Associates, plus he imparted some excellent investing advice along the way. His background as Director of Option Strategy at Wheat, First Securities, and his long-time professional work with point & figure charts combine to give the seasoned investor an excellent playbook for approaching the stock market with enough education to come out a winner. This is an excellent book not only for the work Dorsey has done with point and figure charts (his bread and butter), but also for the insights he gives on sector investing, relative strength, momentum, and options. His discussion of the logic behind relative strength is second to none, and morphs nicely into sector rotation. This is the way the stock market basically works, and investors would do well to listen closely to Dorsey's well-reasoned explanations. Point and figure charting is vastly superior to bar charting from the point of view of finding congestion (support and resistance) areas. If you can take the time to learn P & F charting, you will be rewarded by being able to observe the stock market from a much simpler and realistic standpoint. Additionally, there is an extended discussion of options, with an emphasis on buying rather than selling, although he does acknowledge, "Time is the silent killer of all options." He even adds in a little story of how in his earlier days he was right about a stock but still lost money buying its calls. He correctly advises not to sell calls against stock you don't want to let go - "closet uncovered writing," he calls it. But very little space is given to covered option writing, which could be argued is the best investment strategy available to the public investor. By the time you've consumed Dorsey's thoughts and observations, you will have gotten your money's worth, and hopefully plenty of useful advice on how the market really works.

This is one of four books by Tommy and his team. Thay have a logical, organized method for investing that does indeed work.The best money you can spend is to either learn this method yourself or find an investment consultant who uses this method.

Honestly, there are not too many books in the personal investing genre that we'd recommend for serious investment advice. But if you're a serious investor considering a venture into short-term trading (formerly known as day-trading), you'll benefit from the wisdom, mind-boggling detail and dizzying array of charts presented here. Tom Dorsey likens good investment advice to a sports playbook that a coach can follow through the twists and turns of the game. The plays and strategies that they outline will be valuable for novices, but we [...] figure that they will challenge trading veterans as well. You need to do some homework (like following the indices and making charts) to work with this book. Dorsey and crew urge you to learn stock-market basics, govern your emotions, understand the psychology that drives investors and avoid common mistakes, like investing based on trends and hot tips. And, don't mind their sports jargon; it's just a framework to make the uninitiated feel comfortable.