If you read Toms original book (tbh the free master the markets ebook is not that different so it would do) you will at least be able to debate the subject from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance. Reading a few posts in a forum might be enough for you to say 'VSA is not for me' but it hardly puts you in a position to argue its veracity or efficacy. I would never dream of criticizing peoples precious candles for example without doing similar work (I have all of Nissons and Bigalows books, I have done Nissons seminars and met the 'great man' on numerous occasions, always decent discussions about what he publishes) to do any less would be half arsed.
Anyway back to
VSA....its simply a tool, a method of looking at the market its not a trading system or even a book about how to use the tools to trade. The basic premises are blindingly simple (perhaps more in another post). On top of those are built 10 or so 'principles' that are essentially divided into signs of strength (SoS) and signs of weakness (SoW). Again pretty simple, certainly when compared to .... errm lets say candles to be provocative
I personally think that there is a great deal of veracity to the basic premise and even the principles. It is firmly grounded in price action but adds volume to the mix in a structured way. Thats not to say there are not pitfalls to be wary of but show me an approach that has none and I am all over it. Yay we found the grail. (maybe more on pitfalls later if anyone is interested?)
Another issue is Tradeguider. I wouldn't go as far as saying they are shills but there objective is
not to buy strength it is to sell weakness. They are a one trick pony. In there effort to market there inventory they are gonna make it look as attractive as possible. As I said elsewhere I am waiting for the Gavin, Tom, Sebastian and Mike action figures. They are already working on the movie tie in (DVD only). Of course the real
VSA 'message' is likely to get at best, a wee bit obscured, and at worst corrupted. I should mention that I mean no disrespect to Sebastian (don't want to jeopardise our friendship
). He can certainly read a chart and even though he is not affiliated to tradeguider he lends some credibility.
One thing Tradeguider has done is raise the awareness of
VSA. Thats a double edged sword of course. I do remember when the book was first published the only person to really talk about it with was Tom. I wonder how many he sold in the first year, not so many I would guess. A bit later on there was a scam in the UK perpetuated by a guy calling himself the chief wizard. (or something like that). Cut a long story short he had a hacked version of
VSA and Toms book was on the reading list (though he claimed to have uncovered the hidden secrets within)! Whilst that did not give as much exposure as trade guider from that moment once in a blue moon you would come across someone that had at least heard of
VSA.
So definitely not crock, though I could certainly highlight a couple of places where there may be issues. Having said that it would be more interesting to see if the naysayers do the work for themselves. I suspect not as I don't think their motive has ever been to establish the efficacy of
VSA.
Plenty more if anyone is
really interested in debating the benefits (or not) of
VSA.