Al Brooks Trading Room Review: Casual Traders Need Not Apply

AlBrooksTradingRoom

Generally speaking, I am a big fan of Al Brooks and his books and trading course. He has been called the ‘trader’s trader’ because he wrote the book (actually a series of books) on price action trading. But he is definitely not everybody’s cup of tea. In particular, new and casual traders may be better off starting somewhere else and I will explain why in this review.

Al Brooks has two websites:
BrooksPriceAction.com – This hosts the trading room and forums devoted to his methodology
BrooksTradingCourse.com – this site hosts his trading course (see our review)

He has been trading for 30 years (he claims it took him 10 years to become profitable), and his style is pure price action trading on the 5 minute chart of SP500 futures. Many traders regard him as an ace trader. If an ace trader offers a trading room for only $99/month shouldn’t that be an easy way to make some money? I figured it was and so I signed up.

The first thing to understand about Al Brooks’ trading room is that his market commentary assumes a familiarity with the concepts in his books and course, and so if you haven’t studied those you will probably be totally confused. This is an example of the type of commentary he gives, “Breakout pullback short for a double top with 1. At the moment I think we’re always in long after the two bull bars reversing up from yesterday’s low. Possible final flag.”

Also, he does not usually give trade alerts like many other rooms will do. He will not say, ‘buy at 2810 with a 4 pt stop and 4 pt target.’ But he will sometimes say things like, ‘low probability short above this bull bar’ or ‘buyers below scaling in lower’. What he tries to do is explain the things he is noticing and then ties it together to make a conclusion about what side of the market has a high probability trade at a given bar. But it is each trader’s responsibility to structure their own trades based on that information.

Therefore, this is not a good room for people looking for trade alerts or for anyone not familiar with his methodology. But if you are familiar with his methodology and want to become proficient at his style of trading then this room can be very helpful as you try to understand what things he notices and how they come together so he can assess the probability of different trades. Also, even if you are trading your own setups on the SP500, it can still be very helpful to listen to an experienced trader give you his market read and whether he think the day is likely a trading range day, a bear trend day, which side in in control, what price levels he’s watching, etc.

Also, this is a very chatter free trading room. There is no way to even chat with other traders without using a separate IRC channel (which was pretty dead when I subscribed to this room). He does take some questions after the trading day is over however.

Pros
– Al is a very experienced and knowledgeable trader
– Generally gives an accurate read on what’s happening and what is likely to happen
– Screen sharing allows you to see his charts
– Low price
– Can subscribe for one month at a time
– Very helpful for traders who are trying to learn his methodology

Cons
– No Trade Alerts
– He doesn’t share his order entry screen
– It’s difficult to talk with other traders
– You need to be familiar with the Al Brooks methodology to understand his market commentary

Here is a free sample video of his trading room: