One could call Technical Analysis of the Currency Market by Boris Schlossberg a pure technical analysis book, but it wouldn’t be a completely correct definition. The book also talks about the psychology of trading and risk management; an introduction to the Forex market (FX 101 chapter) is also made for the very new traders. My overall feeling after reading this book is rather mixed — of course, it gives a lot of insights regarding technical analysis and entry/exit strategies that can be used by Forex traders, but it’s also quite biased and suggests very dangerous (in terms of risk/reward) systems.

It’s a medium-length book with a lot of chart examples and some support tables. Although the amount of continuous text may seem overwhelming at times (for a trading book), it’s not that difficult to read. The book states the following theses:

* Forex is an excellent market for a technical trader.
* Despite what it seems, charts aren’t completely random; they are based on human behavior and thus are affected by certain patterns.
* Prices can either range or trend — your trading behavior should depend on what type fits your personality better.
* It’s not a good idea to trade trend-following strategy in ranging markets.
* Candlestick charts offer the most informative representation of the market situation.
* Fibonacci levels aren’t “magic numbers” but can help in trading.
* Bollinger Bands indicator is one of the best for trend trading.
* “Cut your losses short and let your profits run” isn’t for everyone.
* Knowing yourself is very important to determine your risk/reward strategy.

I can’t say that I’ve really enjoyed reading Technical Analysis of the Currency Market. It has a lot of things that I don’t agree with and also lists a lot of data (strategies mostly), which I am not interested in. In spite of these facts, I can assure you that it’s not a bad trading book and had the following advantages:

* Several interesting indicator-based strategies.
* No difficult calculations — the book will be easy to understand even by the newbies.
* Good notion about the different personalities fitting different approaches to the market.
* Promotes organized approach to trading.

Yes, Boris Schlossberg does a great job with this book, but I probably wouldn’t read it again if I was to return back in time. Even without considering the fact that I knew almost 90% of information covered there, it still has some disadvantages:

* Some factual mistakes (margin calculation, status of NZD, etc.)
* Promotion of rather dangerous risk/reward strategies.
* Mixing risk management with position sizing.
* Shown price pattern examples are very far-fetched.
* No good examples of trade positions gone wrong.

To conclude the review I must say that Technical Analysis of the Currency Market is a great introduction to the technical analysis and can be a good book for the Forex trader’s education, but you shouldn’t limit your study to this book — it’s almost useless (and even somewhat dangerous) if being relied upon as the only book. Some other books on trading would be really helpful after or before reading this one.