Mr. Bollinger's book is unusual as books on technical analysis go. No promises of instant wealth here: rather, at the outset, Bollinger tells the reader that the marketplace is an uncertain arena. His view is that the old dictum "Buy low, sell high," is best viewed in relative terms, and he draws our attention to others who have seen the world somewhat similarly, such as Albert Einstein and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The author's stated "other view" is that "Rational Analysis" is the most (dare I say it?) rational way to approach investing. Rational Analysis, in this context, is the blending of fundamental analysis - balance sheets, product lines and such for stocks or carry-over stocks and acres planted for grains, for instance - with technical analysis. Mr. Bollinger has promised us another book dealing with Rational Analysis, and in this book he focuses entirely on the technical side.

The book has a brief introduction to charting to assure that there is someplace to look to understand terminology. Of course, there is an appendix which also sets for meanings for technical and charting terms. Along with this, the author provides us with a short history of technical analysis, an unusual feature. From here he moves into his trademark work, Bollinger Bands, how to construct them and how to use them and how to avoid misusing them which can result in having them abuse you. I should say that about fifteen years ago, I found out how thoroughly one can be bitten by misuse of Bollinger Bands - and it was my own wallet that shrank.

An advanced section, which is, indeed, advanced, is provided in which the author gives his thoughts for altering his work to make it fit the reader's perspective. How to integrate the information provided by B Bands and by his less well-known but quite useful "other creation," %b, into or in with other technical indicators. Also provided are ways to analyze your own trading techniques in order to avoid the trap of using the same data seventeen (my number) different ways that all come up with the same result - which really means that you have only one indicator, not seventeen.

Perhaps Mr. Bollinger's most sage, non-technical analytic advice is put forth early in the book. He tells the reader not to worry about having everyone else use "the system," no matter what the system is, because every individual will use it differently. Thus 1,000 people using The System will trade as if there were 1,000 different systems. And most critically, the reader is advised to devise his own system, to take pieces from systems here and their, and tweak them so that each person has a system that fits his own personality. If YOU are not comfortable with your system, YOU won't be able to trade it effectively. There is much good advice and explication of uses of statistics in general and Bollinger Bands in particular in this book. But if the only thing you take away from the book is the above bit of advice, and if you take it to heart, you'll be richly rewarded in the marketplace. On a personal note, I already used three band sets, BBands one of them; I have now added %b to my arsenal. To my surprise, it does not duplicate any of my other 10 indicators.

This is a book to be thoroughly digested by every trader. While Bollinger Bands are in the everyday parlance of traders now, 20 years ago they were a ground breaking concept. There are other ways to compute volatility, but all that I have seen actually work better when combined with Bollinger Bands and/or its close relative, %b. Although some reviews here dismiss this book lightly, it is seminal and deep. My second reading found important details that I did not notice first time through. I expect I'll find more useful detail when next I reread the book.

It is interesting how things all of a sudden things come together in a Martin Gardner ah-hah! sort of moment. (I wish I had those more often). Anyway, I was developing a trading strategy and was being stymied with coming up with a method for filtering side-ways movements from trending movements. It suddenly dawned on me that this is what volatility is all about. I've been reading much on options and how volatility is an integral part of option trading. There was just so much to assimilate in analyzing options that the simple truth escaped me. High volatility begats low volatility and low volatility begats high volatility. (Among other things) Low volatility leading to high volatility forms the basis for Bollinger's Squeeze Play, otherwise known as the Volatility Breakout Trade. The Squeeze Play is one of three methods Bollinger has cooked up to show the benefits of Bollinger Band utilization.

What it all boils down to is that volatility is basically a study on standard deviation. By using standard deviation bands and calculating differences between them, Bollinger has defined a flexible set of indicators that can be used not only on tradeable instruments, but as component parts of other indicators.

Bollinger continually stresses that Bollinger Bands should not be used independently. The signals they generate should always be confirmed with other indicators. Bollinger has a preference for volume based indicators, which he says tend to lead the market.

Another interesting aspect of the book has to do with pattern matching. I've been wondering how one would generate computer algorithms to detect trading patterns such as the head & shoulders pattern. A few key observations have clarified the picture for me as to defining some ways to proceed. The book proceeds with detailing about 32 different patterns that originated with Arthur Merrill.

It is interesting to note that there is enough material surrounding Bollinger Bands that a whole book can be written regarding the topic. So, by playing around with various combinations of volatility analysis, pattern matching, and volume confirmation, there is no end of possibilities for trading system development.

It's nearly impossible for any technical analyst to neglect BB with its assessibility, and it's so logical to learn the tool or expect to get the most of it from the inventor himself. With regard to this book, the good things are: The author did not promote his tool as something invincible. He talked about the limitations of and warned readers of the need for continuous revision. Very smooth writing and an easy read. The bad things are: BB is not really a sophisticated tool at all. So the author had "filled" it up with some stuff that seemed light or marginally helpful to readers who had read over five trading books. I am afraid that comprises of most of the potential buyers coz I think it's hard for novices to spend over thirty bucks for a book that talks only of one single TA tool. Furthermore, I really cant acquire extra knowledge of BB from this book that distinguishes it from other TA books I read before.

Anyway, I still think this is a good read. Afterall, it costs less than one pip in some futures market and you can definitely save a lot more in case you can use BB to enhance your trading system as the author suggests.

Was looking forward to this book since I found some systems using BBs. However, was less than impressed. Nothing new, especially for someone that the indicator is named after. Lots of references to his websites too. Squeeze play-expect a move after period of low volatility, yep, nothing new. But, no good discussion on how to implement strategy to capitilize on squeeze. You'll learn more from the following tips than this book,

1. If price touches a rising lower Bollinger Bands (long) or a falling upper Bollinger Bands (short) in the traded time frame, that is a safe entry point.

2. If price touches a lateral (flat) Bollinger Bands and is also touching (or nearly touching) a lateral Bollinger Bands in a higher time frame, that is safe entry for trade in opposite direction.

3. If price touches lateral lower Bollinger Bands (for long) and lower Bollinger Bands on higher time frame is distinctly rising, that is a safe long entry (reverse for short).

4. If price touches lower Bollinger Bands and MACD and/or stochastic on higher time frame is showing long, that is safe long entry.