Show Notes
- Amazon USA Store: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118859200?tag=9natree-20
- Amazon Worldwide Store: https://global.buys.trade/Getting-Started-in-Chart-Patterns-Thomas-N-Bulkowski.html
- Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/charting-your-success-a-comprehensive-guide-to/id1849733838?itsct=books_box_link&itscg=30200&ls=1&at=1001l3bAw&ct=9natree
- eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Getting+Started+in+Chart+Patterns+Thomas+N+Bulkowski+&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339060787&customid=9natree&toolid=10001&mkevt=1
- Read more: https://mybook.top/read/1118859200/
#chartpatterns #technicalanalysis #breakouts #riskmanagement #tradingpsychology #supportandresistance #patternrecognition #GettingStartedinChartPatterns
These are takeaways from this book.
Firstly, What Chart Patterns Represent and Why They Matter, The book frames chart patterns as visual summaries of supply and demand, not artistic drawings. A pattern is essentially a narrative of who is in control, where traders become trapped, and where pressure builds until price escapes a boundary. That perspective helps beginners understand that patterns are probabilistic tools that suggest likely paths, not guarantees. You learn how trends, consolidations, and reversals can be seen as phases of crowd behavior, with support and resistance acting like memory zones where orders previously clustered. The discussion encourages readers to define patterns with objective criteria so that two people looking at the same chart can reach similar conclusions. Equally important, the book highlights that patterns exist within broader conditions such as volatility, trend strength, and liquidity. Those conditions influence whether a breakout is likely to run or fail quickly. By treating patterns as hypotheses to be tested, the reader is pushed toward a more professional mindset: define the setup, plan the trigger, specify the exit, and evaluate results over many trades. This foundation makes later chapters on specific formations far more actionable.
Secondly, Identification Rules and Clean Pattern Construction, A major barrier for new technical traders is inconsistency: seeing a pattern everywhere or missing obvious setups. The book addresses this by emphasizing identification rules that reduce subjectivity. You are guided to pay attention to the number of touches on trendlines, the clarity of boundaries, the slope and symmetry of consolidations, and how long the structure takes to form. These details matter because loose definitions lead to poor signals and unreliable backtesting. The book also encourages separating lookalike structures, such as distinguishing a simple pullback from a developing flag, or a choppy range from a well formed rectangle. Attention is given to volume behavior and price action near key levels, not as a requirement in every case but as supporting evidence. Another practical theme is avoiding forced fits: if you must redraw lines repeatedly to make the pattern work, it is probably not a strong candidate. By learning to prioritize clean, easily explainable structures, readers can create a watchlist process that scales. The result is a repeatable method for marking patterns, setting alerts, and preparing trade plans without improvisation.
Thirdly, Breakouts, Confirmation, and Measuring Expectations, Patterns become tradable at the moment of decision, which is typically the breakout or breakdown. The book focuses on what constitutes a valid breakout, including the role of closes beyond the boundary, the effect of false moves, and why waiting for confirmation can trade off better accuracy for worse entry prices. It explains that breakout strength can be evaluated through context: how price approaches the boundary, whether it coils tightly or chops, and whether there is room to move before hitting major overhead resistance or support. The reader is also introduced to ways traders commonly estimate targets, such as measured move concepts tied to the pattern’s height. Importantly, these targets are treated as expectations, not promises. The book’s data oriented approach encourages you to think in terms of probabilities and typical outcomes, including the fact that many breakouts retrace to the breakout point before continuing. Understanding these tendencies helps with planning entries, setting stops, and avoiding emotional exits during normal pullbacks. By focusing on how breakouts behave in the real world, the book aims to prevent the common beginner mistake of assuming every breakout will instantly trend.
Fourthly, Risk Management: Stops, Position Sizing, and Failure Patterns, Even a well identified pattern can fail, and the book treats that reality as central rather than incidental. It emphasizes defining risk before entering, typically by placing a stop where the pattern thesis is invalidated rather than where it merely feels uncomfortable. You learn to think about the distance from entry to stop as the key variable that determines position size, ensuring that no single trade can cause outsized damage. The book also highlights common failure modes, such as breakouts that reverse quickly, patterns that morph into larger structures, and situations where nearby support or resistance caps follow through. Recognizing these risks shapes better trade selection: you may skip trades with poor reward to risk, unclear boundaries, or crowded levels ahead. Another theme is trade management after entry, including how to handle pullbacks, when to tighten stops, and how to avoid moving stops irrationally. By integrating risk controls with pattern recognition, the book positions chart patterns as part of a complete decision system. This approach benefits readers who want to trade with discipline rather than chase signals, and it helps build habits that remain useful regardless of market regime.
Lastly, A Practical Workflow for Studying and Trading Patterns, Beyond definitions, the book supports a process for turning pattern knowledge into skill. That process typically begins with building a curated set of patterns you can recognize quickly, then studying examples to learn what clean setups look like versus marginal ones. The book encourages tracking outcomes so you can evaluate whether a pattern type truly matches your personality, timeframe, and market. A practical workflow includes scanning for candidates, drawing boundaries consistently, planning the entry and exit before the trigger, and then reviewing results to refine rules. You are pushed to treat pattern trading like a craft: repetition, deliberate practice, and incremental improvement. The emphasis on performance tendencies also promotes realistic expectations, making it easier to persist through normal drawdowns without abandoning the method. Another helpful dimension is adapting patterns to different contexts such as trending markets versus range bound markets, and recognizing when conditions are unfavorable. By structuring learning as an iterative loop of observation, execution, and review, the book helps beginners progress from passive chart watching to an organized routine. That routine is often what separates traders who occasionally get lucky from traders who can maintain a repeatable edge.