tactical trader

There can be few books that have polarised opinion as much as Street Smarts by Connors and Bradford Raschke. As a quick look at the reviews will reveal, the work is considered to be either the best thing available or a complete waste of money.

So which is it? This is the very question I will try and answer in this review. First of all let’s deal with the price, there can be little doubt that over one hundred pounds is an awful lot of money for a book of this nature, especially one that is over ten years old. I guess that when the book was published it contained so much valuable information that the price was well worth paying, the trouble is that so many years down the line swing trading has moved on considerably and so has the amount of information available, especially online.

Ten years is a lifetime where the internet is concerned and there is a whole army of traders out there who are prepared to share and discuss their own activities, many of which will be based on their own versions of what is in this book. Whilst I am not advocating any form of copyright infringement I have to say that while reading the book I kept thinking about other approaches that are remarkably similar and available at much less expense. This was just not the case back in the mid-nineties so the book would have appeared better value than it does now.

We should also remember that there have been so many other books published in the meantime, many of which may also be worthy of your attention.

The counterpoint to this must be that there is also so much rubbish out there from pretend traders who just want to make a quick buck. Even worse are those who have failed and can’t wait to make it clear how things have let them down. It can be very hard work to sift through all of this and only concentrate on the useful material so arguably a hundred pounds on a book that gives you the material from the original source is money well spent.

So instead of comparing Street Smarts with everything else that is out there, I will review the book on its own merit. This is done on the assumption that you are prepared to put the work into trying out what is recommended, using it as a basis for further exploration and development of your skills…