A Beginner's Guide to Day Trading Online [Paperback]

For one thing, her discussion of volume bars as confirmation of strong intraday breakouts leaves alot to be desired. For example, she says that volume spikes generally presage a good breakout, but the fact is, ANY breakout---real or false---will generally show a volume spike. It's kind of like saying that wherever there's fire, there'll be smoke; therefore if you see smoke, you should be aware of fire. But remember: we're trying to find the fire BEFORE the smoke when it comes to trading. Turner deftly avoids that issue when she answers her own question ('how do you find stocks before they move') by quoting the usual and obvious (buy good liquid stocks above their moving averages, etc.). Problem is, good liquid stocks may have nothing to do with making good day trading candidates unless SOMETHING is propelling those stocks to move in the short and narrow time frame that is the daytrader's domain.

Another problem with her discussion of the all-important volume bars is poor and sometimes confusing illustrations and charts. For example, in some examples, volume bars are circled (the smoking guns that portend a breakout), but you can't really see a difference from other bars on the chart. In other cases, I found myself reading and re-reading through her chart examples, trying to interpret or make sense of what the author is seeing, but remained confused (if the reader is trying to make sense out of someone else's lack of clarity, something is wrong; the example should clearly speak for itself).

In still other examples, the author includes 'buy' signals on charts that show apparent downtrends (I would think beginners would be confused as heck at these notations!).

Try it for yourself. Go to a real time charting service and try to make sense of volume bars on an intraday chart, and you'd be better off looking at a Rubic's cube. There's just too many bars behaving too erratically to really show you anything with absolute clarity.

Another flaw is Turner's citing of moving averages (MA's), and the CCI (Commodity Channel Index) as 'crystal balls' which can predict trends-to-be. Please understand: stock charts' behavior with respect to MA's are simply not the way she describes them. So called bounces off of MA's often fail as much as they succeed, and more often fizzle and crash. Moreover, the CCI will typically show many confusing signals to all but the most highly trained and experienced day traders and even then, there is no unanimity as to its effectiveness. I can refer you to a number of daytrading message boards who've had frequent discussions on the CCI and no one has yet found it to be a one-beats-all indicator.

Turner, as other trading authors make the common sleight-of-hand mistake of laying out theories, AND THEN finding examples to support them by a kind of backward engineering. For example, if I were writing a book on how volume bars and the CCI DON'T WORK, I could also show you hundreds of failed breakouts betrayed by so-called bullish signals on the aforementioned indicators.

Trading is one of the most difficult professions on earth. In my opinion, books like Turners' who over simplify the process by presenting information that is erroneous and potentially very costly (in the form of lost trades) don't really do justice to this complex subject and those willing to take up the battle in the most serious context possible.

If you want some in depth understanding as a proper introduction into the difficulties and complexity of daytrading, I would recommend The Guts and Glory of DayTrading. THEN decide if it's right for you.

I've been day trading equities full-time for a number of years. If I were a newcomer to the markets today, this book would be at the top of the list of recommendations to myself...(I hope that makes sense).

I think the book would be most helpful to beginners and folks who have already been trading for up to a year. The text is heavily grounded in technical analysis and includes many chart examples. Great stuff!