Financial-markets

Either you are a so-called Elliottician or simply curious about one of the most discussed market histyory, this book is a must have.
Robert Pretcher is from far the best author I have read on Elliott wave theory. The book is clear and contains all the tenets you need to get a firm, sound graph of the Elliott Theory.
Do not expect trading systems or magic formulas, but at least a good, well written, concise but still complete analysis of the key Elliott's principles.
Suggested read.

After reading this book I've decided to study Elliot Waves very carefully. While the book is fairly short the job of constructing degrees and understanding the rules/guidelines will take time to master. The reason I feel it's worth the time is that only Elliot Wave provided a structured way to understand short and long term cycles. The stacking and governance by degree provide meaningful insight into predicting future price movement.

Obviouosly people either love this book (and this concept) or they hate it. I happen to love it and believe that the wave principle answers many questions about market behavior, mass social psychology and even world history. To me, the book does as much in constructing the tapestry of human history as it does in expaining stock market movements.

Anyone expecting to use this book to day-trade and get rich quick is likely to be dissappointed - no one but true experts should be day trading anyway and even many "experts" should probably find other lines of work.

What this book will do is begin to provide an understanding of markets as a function of human nature as well as to provide a very good long term perspective of all of human history. This book provides insight to explain everything from minor stock market corrections to protracted economic depressions to major world wars and even, believe it or not, the dark ages.

Many are critical of Prechter's (obviously wrong) bearish opinion through the 1990s, and rightfully so. On the other hand, if his hypothesis is correct (and I think it is) that we are approaching the end of a bull market that started in 1789, then calling the end of that bull market correctly within even ten years is a spectacular feat. (Yes, I said a bull market that started in "Seventeen Eighty-Nine". Read the book and begin to understand why the USA was born through revolution at the end of the 1700s.)

Let me also point out that Prechter was about the only voice calling for a tremendous bull market starting in 1982. At that time, the mainstream media was pronouncing equities "dead" and you could hardly give away a share of stock free with a bowl of soup. Now that everyone and their brother wants to own stock, of course anyone with a bearish opinion is treated as an outcast.

I think people who have such a low opinion of this book either have minds that are way too closed or, frankly, do not have the ability to understand it. (While I don't think the book is extremely difficult, it is not exactly a first grade reader either.)

Anyone who is in the stock market or considering being in it should consider this book obligatory reading. As unpopular as this viewpoint may be now, we are heading for a very serious bear market and anyone who removes most (or all) of their funds from the stock market will look back ten years from now and be very glad they did.

Prechter's Elliott Wave International has a web site at elliottwave.com which I highly recommend. The site provides additional information which may make a stronger case for the validity and importance of this information than I have here.

This book really revealed a lot about how Internet Commerce has changed the Financial sector. The book introduces readers to the technology that's driving the information dissemination in financial markets and how trades securely take place over a public network (the Internet).
The book has mind-blowing futuristic visions for markets: the authors describe how the Hollywood market is used to predict successes in movies, how the Iowa market is used to predict the outcomes of presidential elections, etc.
In summary, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about financial markets and how to implement and manage it with todya's Internet technology. The exposition is clear and the authors look proficient, but it looks like this book was written way ahead of its time ... I read this book just recently, and it was a real revelation to me: written nearly two years ago, what the authors were describing as reality then, is just now slowly coming true ...