Technical Analysis Books, Grouped by What You Want to Learn

Its publisher, Prentice Hall Press, describes it as Murphy's update of his earlier book, Technical Analysis of the Futures Markets, extended to all the financial markets, covering technical tools and indicators along with candlestick charting, intermarket relationships, and stocks and stock rotation.

A partial, machine-extracted contents listing on Google Books shows headings on chart construction, trend and trendlines, price and continuation patterns, candlesticks, Elliott Wave theory and cycles.

TradingLoot's guidance: this is the broadest book on this page, a survey of chart concepts rather than a single method, which makes it a natural first reference. This edition is dated 1999, so its market examples predate today's electronic markets. For a fuller guide to its topics, see our summary of Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets. To practise these concepts on charts, see Futures Charting Software: TradingView, MotiveWave, and NinjaTrader.

Its publisher, Prentice Hall Press, presents candlestick charts as a long-standing form of technical analysis for traders of all skill levels, with hundreds of examples, and says this second edition was updated for swing, day and online trading.

According to a Google Books contents listing, the chapters run from historical background and candle basics, through reversal and continuation patterns, stars and the doji, to combining candles with trend lines, retracements, oscillators and volume.

TradingLoot's guidance: Murphy's book includes candlestick material, according to its publisher; this is the book on this page that is dedicated to the subject. Because its publisher pitches it at all skill levels, it can be read early, once chart basics are familiar. For a fuller guide to its ideas, see our summary of Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques. For a separate TradingLoot guide to reading candles in context, including patterns of one or several candles, see How to Read Japanese Candlesticks.

Its publisher, Wiley, describes how to identify each chart pattern, with performance statistics on how well it works, how often it fails and which features suggest better performance. Wiley says this third edition uses nearly four times the samples of the second, adds tables on stop hits, busted patterns and performance over decades, and includes an "Experience" section drawn from the author's own trades.

Wiley's table of contents opens with a chapter on how to trade chart patterns, then gives each of 75 patterns its own chapter in alphabetical order, including common ones such as double tops and bottoms, head-and-shoulders, flags, triangles and cup with handle. It ends with a statistics summary, a glossary and a visual index, and flags the patterns that are new to this edition.

TradingLoot's guidance: at 1,312 pages, according to its publisher, it works as a reference to look up a pattern rather than a book to read cover to cover. For how Bulkowski measures patterns, see our summary of Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns. Before trading a pattern, test your own rules for it; see Backtesting, Replay and Paper Trading Explained. Chart patterns form across many bars, unlike candlestick patterns; for a separate TradingLoot guide to reading them, from prior trend to confirmation and failure, see Chart Patterns: How to Read Them and What They Can't Tell You.

Its publisher, Wiley, describes reading individual price bars and bar combinations on 5-minute charts to identify trends and trade them, and presents it as the first of three books by Brooks; the other two cover trading ranges and reversals.

Wiley's table of contents has four parts: price action basics (trend and doji bars, breakouts, reversals, signal bars and entries), trend lines and channels, trends, and common trend patterns, in 26 chapters. The publisher's index includes entries on the Emini. According to his publisher, Brooks is an independent day trader and a contributor to Futures magazine.

TradingLoot's guidance: the subtitle addresses "the Serious Trader" and the focus is intraday 5-minute charts, so this isn't a first technical analysis book. It suits active intraday chart readers, including index-futures day traders. Historical replay is one way to practise reading price bar by bar; see Backtesting, Replay and Paper Trading Explained.

Its publisher, Wiley, describes the Market Profile method as a way to identify value areas and price rejection points and to measure the strength of buyers and sellers, and says this updated edition adds chapters on Market Profile-based strategies.

Wiley's table of contents is organised by trader stage, from novice to expert, followed by a chapter on experience. Topics include day types, the open, value areas, other-timeframe control, brackets and trends, high- and low-volume areas and long-term profiles, with appendices on value-area calculation and TPO versus volume profiles. Its examples come from futures markets such as crude oil, the S&P 500, gold and Treasury bonds. The contents also date the book's first printing to 1990.

TradingLoot's guidance: this is the book on this page about auction and value thinking, and the closest to the volume profile and order-flow displays many futures traders use. It suits futures and day traders, and its novice-to-expert structure gives a clear entry point. For how those displays work, see What Is Order Flow Trading? For a fuller guide to the book, see our summary of Mind Over Markets.