Marber on markets - Brian Marber

This is not your average book on technical analysis. Why? Because the author is not your average technical analyst; Brian Marber is unique - and so, as a result, is this book.

Here, Marber sets out to write about his approach, in a language readers can understand and enjoy, telling them why he does what he does, and how he came to do it, including details of market pitfalls and the occasional Marber pratfall.

The book does not claim to be comprehensive, but instead aims to be honest and to present the reader with the techniques and indicators that Marber himself uses, and has used successfully in his fifty-one years in the business.

Although when you make money you can learn something about making it, you learn far more by losing it, then finding out how to stop doing so. This book tells you his methods; when positions have gone wrong, and what you do about it.

Technical analysis is about running profits and, by using technically-oriented stops, cutting losses - not when it hurts but when, from a technical point of view, the position you're in becomes untenable. Following a Rothschild maxim that "tops and bottoms are for fools", Marber would also add "and for liars". He describes technical analysis as exactly like huntin', shootin', and fishin': what's being hunted are trends, never shooting for a top nor fishing for a bottom. But before any of that you need to learn about price.

Using the same approach that he used when he taught at the International Management Institute, Geneva, he begins with price, then what price leads to: trends, support and resistance, patterns, indicators and ratios. When that has been absorbed, he moves on to stops.

Marber also shares with the reader his vast wealth of experience of his time in the business - showing you the nitty-gritty, technical analysis in real-time, warts and all, and including reports on the FTSE, gold, oil and the dollar.

This book is a must-read for anyone who really wants to understand the markets, delivered in Marber's distinctive and unique voice.