"John Ehlers, `master of cycles, 'delivers more than just the definitive work on cycle analysis and adaptive techniques; he raises financial mathematics to a higher level. The book solves the problem of identifying sideways and trending markets, and teaches how to minimize lag. For nonmathematicians, Ehlers provides clear chapter summaries and fully programmed systems that make this book a prize."-Perry J. Kaufman, President of Strategic Market Systems, Author of Trading Systems and Methods

"John Ehlers combines innovative insights into price behavior with a powerful, concrete approach to trading. The result is a unique blend of high theory and hands-on, practical trading systems and methods."-Nelson Freeburg, Editor of Formula Research

"John Ehlers has made more original, analytically sound contributions to the study of technical analysis than anyone except Art Merrill. This volume caps years of development and makes available to traders successful techniques they would have little chance of creating on their own. I recommend it to all advanced traders without hesitation." -John Sweeney, Editor of Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities magazine

"John Ehlers has been a regular standout in trading system rankings for many years.

Note: do not be put off by the math in the book. If you just skip what you don't understand, and I skipped a lot, there is enough informative pure text for you to get most of the benefits of the ideas that are put across in this fine text. In addition there are a couple of complete trading systems and a plethora of new and innovative indicators for which you are given the complete TradeStation Easy Language code....


Breath of fresh air   January 26, 2002
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

This book stands heads and shoulders above the vast majority writings (pabulum) currently available relating to technical analysis. Any serious student of technical analysis can easily determine this in a very short period of time. Although some of the text gets very mathematically technical (probably way too technical for the average trading "bear"), I believe that John Ehlers takes this approach to try to answer the "why" question and to allow the readers to easily develop a rational basis/confidence in the trust worthiness of the methods that John Ehlers' espouses and promotes. I for one would not use any trading system/approach unless I was convinced that it had a valid premise upon on which it was based. John's writings, including Rocket Science, are clear and precise and make the task of validating or invalidating any given approach a straight forward task. My experience has been that even if a system works in actual trading, unless it is founded on valid market premise, its successful trading life will be short lived.

I am in the process of backtesting and "tweaking" my second 100% mechanical trading system and many of the ideas in my second system are based on the concepts that John teaches in Rocket Science.


High tech - first rate tools for traders   January 28, 2002
Paul J. Pontillo (Batavia, NY USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

In this day and age of readily available information, super computers and advances in computational tools, the markets are becoming extremely efficient. If a trader or investor wants to keep pace or even "beat the market", he must become more sophisticated. Rocket Science for Traders offers traders the tools necessary to survive in the equity and commodity markets.

The math and accompanying monologue may be difficult but the premise is simple. If the markets are somewhat inefficient then past prices contain information that is exploitable by the trader. But the past prices will also contain unwanted "noise". John Ehlers book provides the tools necessary to eliminate the noise offering traders a clearer picture of where the markets are heading. If someone understands this they can skip the math and derivations and simply copy the code into TradeStation and immediately use the indicators and systems. Or, better yet, use the indicators and cycle length measurements as inputs into other systems and indicators making them truly adaptive and powerful.

I agree with the reviewer who said to "keep it simple." However, we should remember Einstein's recommendation that a model should be "as simple as possible, but not simpler." This book offers traders the ability to use state of the art signal extraction in their simple models. Anyone that develops his or her own trading strategies based on technical analysis must have and USE this book.


Best book I've read on Tech. analysis, indicators & systems   February 18, 2002
Robert K. Auten (Redondo Beach, CA USA)
17 out of 21 found this review helpful

Great Book! Reading "Rocket Science for Traders" was like taking a fresh breath of air. I devoured it over one weekend and have read and studied some chapter portions two or three times since my first reading. Over the years I've read most of the best and highly recommended technical analysis books and studied the various indicators that are being used and sometimes touted. However, I have consistently come away feeling that so many people pursuing technical analysis are not very technical at all. For example, a well known and widely used indicator takes the standard deviation of price data and uses it. Price data, however, is not "normal" or Gaussian distributed. Therefore, the standard deviation, as calculated, is mis-applied and what results is not an accurate variance measurement around the price mean or average as it is intended to be.
In his book, John Ehlers has provided us, a set of indicators, systems and concepts that are sound conceptually, mathematically and fundamentally proven. The tools that he presents are accepted, in science and engineering, around the world as some of the best that we have in which to model discrete and sampled data systems like the stock market. His book has helped confirm some of my ideas and I have enhanced the effectiveness of my systems with the use of his little and no lag processes and models.
I have a strong engineering and math background and the book to me was a "God send" because the theory, examples and EasyLanguage code were all given and well presented. However, I believe a beginner and any serious trader or student will likewise significantly benefit from John's book. That's because its easy to read, i.e., the concepts and applications are clearly explained in plain english. You don't have to do any math or understand the math or derivation concepts to use and apply the indicators and systems. Also, as mentioned above, the EasyLanguage code is provided and also easy to read and understand.


Scholarly and Practical   August 19, 2001
Dr Alexander Elder (New York, USA)
28 out of 37 found this review helpful

John Ehlers is a real-life rocket scientist fascinated by trading the markets. He applies the principles of signal processing in order to find signals (trends and turns) behind the noise of random moves. His book is the exact opposite of 'easy money' slap jobs - it requires attention and some familiarity with math, but the reward is that it takes you from general principles to the exact computer code for finding trading signals.