Point and Figure Charting: The Essential Application for Forecasting and Tracking Market Prices: Amazon.ca: Thomas J. Dorsey: Books

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Dorsey explains how you can use your findings to track and forecast market prices and develop an overall investment strategy. -- BACK COVER

Dorsey shows, step-by-step, how to create, maintain, and interpret your own point and figure charts. -- Publisher

Book Description

The classic source for the technical analysis discipline now brings readers up to date in techniques and technology
Now, in this second edition of the classic text, expert Thomas Dorsey shows, step-by-step, how to create, maintain, and interpret your own point and figure charts. He explains how you can use your findings to track and forecast market prices and develop an overall investment strategy. Perhaps most importantly, he helps you develop confidence in the market and take decisive action at the appropriate time, rather than reacting after the fact. Dorsey also highlights new developments in the field and incorporates the use of recently developed software to track any market using point and figure methods. Written for both new and experienced P & F chartists, this updated edition of a technical analysis classic brings point and figure charting into the Internet age.
Thomas J. Dorsey (Richmond, VA) is President of Dorsey, Wright & Associates, a registered investment advisory firm that uses point and figure charting as its main source of technical analysis.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
Many investors are familiar with charts of some kind or other, whether from school or reading newspapers or magazines. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

27 Reviews

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4.2 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Book changed my investing life, Mar 27 2002

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C. C. Lostrom (Beaverton, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Point and Figure Charting: The Essential Application for Forecasting and Tracking Market Prices (Hardcover)

This book changed how I view the stock market in a most profound way. I found it easy to understand and easy to apply the concepts in real time. This book, in combination with Dorsey's web site, have enabled me to make a lot of money in the stock market. No more floundering around in the dark, throwing darts at a newspaper. As a matter of fact, the concepts discussed in the book have made me very bearish at a time (3/27/02) when there are a lot of bullish fund managers and members of the media. This book will make you a member of the "smart money".

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Too Hard to Read, Concepts Available Elsewhere, Mar 19 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Point and Figure Charting: The Essential Application for Forecasting and Tracking Market Prices (Hardcover)

Mr. Dorsey is a talented financial analyst and amateur weightlifter when he was younger BUT, he is not a good writer (this has been confirmed in my personal correspondence with Mr. Dorsey) and this book cries out for thorough editing. One can learn Point and Figure charting for free at the dorseywright dot com web site (just look for the point n figure university link at the bottom of the home page). Dorsey knows his stuff but the more easily bored one is, the more one will find this book aimless and boring. Point and Figure is superior to bar and candlestick charts because it records meaningful market movement while ignoring the small stuff. Another Point and Figure book, published in the 1930s by de Viller (?), is also very hard to read and not worthy of buying. Let's hope Mr Dorsey, a great guy and always terrific on CNBC, will get this book re-edited and whittled down to about 175 pages. Learn it for free at his website and order "Chart Reading Made Easy" by John Murphy to quickly and economically learn technical analysis.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific risk management tool., Mar 5 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Point and Figure Charting: The Essential Application for Forecasting and Tracking Market Prices (Hardcover)

Even though I would rate this book as highly recommended to anyone seriously interested in reducing the risks inherent in investing, this book is not a quick easy read. With a financial services background spanning 20+ years, I had to read this book several times to understand and appreciate it's true value.

In my opinion, the greatest value of this book is found in the larger picture, beyond the "how to" technical talk or author's writing style. Here, Dorsey teaches why the price change in stocks actually has very little to do with company fundamentals, and expouses a very particular investment philosophy - an investment philosophy predicated upon the belief that the lowest common denominator in price change of all kind (including stock price movement) is Nature's own Law of Supply and Demand.

That concept is supported by others, including the Nobel Prize winning "Modern Portfolio Theory", which suggests that only about 20% of the cause of price movement in stocks is a direct result of a company's fundamentals, while as much as 80% can be attributed to investor expectations - or said another way, supply and demand.

For example, if we were all totally logical and could separate our emotions from our investment decisions, then fundamental analysis - the determination of price based on future earnings - would work magnificently. And since we would all have the same completely logical expectations, prices would only change when quarterly reports or relevant news was released. Investors would be seeking "overlooked" fundamental data in an effort to find undervalued securities.

However, if prices are based on investor expectations, then knowing what a security should sell for (i.e., fundamental analysis) becomes less important than knowing what other investors expect it to sell for. That's not to say that knowing what a security should sell for isn't important - it is. But, as we all know firsthand, human emotions are not easily quantifiable or predictable, and this guarantees an element of unpredictability in security prices.

In order to be consistently successful, investors must find a way to effectively identify, measure and manage the intangible or "emotional" (and often times, irrational!) risk component present in all financial markets. So how does this book help investors? The Point and Figure Method of charting stock prices was created by Charles Dow in the late 1800's as a way to accurately identify and measure supply and demand - and therefore risk unrelated to fundamentals - in the financial markets.

Although there is little written resource material such as this book on Point & Figure Methodology, there are now several Point & Figure related resource sites available for free in the Internet.

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