Explore all 80 books in the Trader’s Library →
Reversal trading is the most seductive and most expensive habit in the retail world. Everyone wants to catch the exact top or bottom, and almost everyone who tries it early and often gets destroyed. This is the book Al Brooks wrote about that specific problem, and its greatest service is teaching you how rarely a reversal is actually worth taking.
Trading Price Action: Reversals is one volume of Brooks’s three-part rewrite of his method, alongside the Trends volume already on this list and a middle volume on trading ranges. Where the original single-volume book poured the whole method into one dense brick, the trilogy splits it into three focused treatments. This one takes on reversals, which are the hardest trades in the entire framework because most of them are not reversals at all.
Because this is the same author and the same method as two other books on this list, this review will not re-argue the general case for Brooks price action, which the origin-text review covers in full, including the notorious density and the long learning curve. It will focus on what this volume specifically does, who it is for, and why reading it out of sequence is a mistake.
At a Glance
| Author | Al Brooks |
| Full Title | Trading Price Action: Reversals (part of the three-volume series) |
| Published | 2012 (Wiley) |
| Difficulty | Hard, but better organised than the original brick. Still assumes the Brooks framework. |
| Best For | Traders who already know Brooks Trends and want the disciplined treatment of counter-trend setups |
| Skip If | You have not read the Trends volume, or you want a general price-action introduction |
OVERALL RATING: 8.0 / 10
Who Should Read This Book
| Reader | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Brooks trader who knows Trends | Yes | This is the natural next volume. Reversals are the hardest part of the method and get the careful treatment they need here. |
| Chronic reversal trader | Read it for the discipline | If you keep trying to pick tops and bottoms, this book’s main lesson is how rarely you should. That alone may pay for it. |
| Newcomer to Brooks | Not here | Start with the Trends volume or the original book. Reversals is the capstone, not the entry point. |
| Trend follower | Yes, to know the enemy | Understanding what a real reversal looks like sharpens your ability to stay in a trend through the fakes. |
| Systematic trader | For the concept only | Discretionary reading, no backtest or expectancy. The value is judgement, not a codable rule set. |
| Prop-firm challenger | Careful | Counter-trend trading against a hard drawdown limit is a dangerous combination. The discipline here helps, but the setups fight the rules. |
The Book in Context
After the original single volume proved almost impenetrable to many readers, Brooks rebuilt the same material as a three-part series: Trends, Trading Ranges, and Reversals. The reorganisation is the point. Instead of one relentless brick, you get three books that each take a coherent slice of the method and develop it with room to breathe. It is still dense, and it still assumes you will put in the screen time, but the trilogy is the more teachable form of the same content.
The credential position is identical to the other Brooks books on this list, and covered in full there: he is a well-known price-action educator with a fully documented method, weighed here on the coherence of that method rather than on undocumented performance claims. Nothing about the reversals volume changes that boundary.
What makes this volume worth a separate place on the list is its subject. Reversals are where most retail traders lose the most money, because the urge to call a top or bottom is close to irresistible and almost always premature. A whole book devoted to slowing that urge down and defining when a reversal is actually tradeable is genuinely useful, and few authors treat the topic with this much care.
The Core Argument: Most Reversals Are Failures Until Proven Otherwise
The organising idea of this volume is that a reversal is not an event you predict but a process you wait to be confirmed, and that most apparent reversals are just pauses inside a continuing trend.
Brooks treats a trend as strong by default and a reversal as something that has to earn its status through specific behaviour: a break of the trend, a failed attempt to resume it, and a second move that confirms control has actually changed hands. He walks through the shapes this takes, major trend reversals, double tops and bottoms, wedges, and climactic exhaustion, always with the same discipline: the first sign of a reversal is usually not a reversal, and the trader’s job is to demand confirmation rather than anticipate. The reward for a genuine reversal is large, which is exactly why the temptation to take the fake ones early is so dangerous.
A trend is innocent until proven guilty. The reversal you take before the market has confirmed it is not a brave trade. It is a donation to the traders still riding the trend.
— The discipline this volume is built to teach
This is the volume’s real contribution, and it is more valuable than the setups themselves. The single most common way retail traders bleed out is fighting trends too early, and a careful, book-length case for patience at exactly that decision point is worth more than another catalogue of patterns. Read purely as a corrective to your worst reversal instincts, it earns its place.
The limitations are mostly about sequence and about the method’s inherent nature.
The Problem: It Is a Capstone, Not a Starting Point
The biggest mistake with this book is reading it first, drawn in by the exciting promise of catching reversals, without the foundation the volume assumes.
Reversals only make sense against a deep understanding of trends, because a reversal is defined entirely in relation to the trend it ends. The book assumes you have absorbed the Trends volume, or the equivalent material from the original book, and it does not re-teach it. A reader who starts here gets the hardest, most conditional part of the method with none of the groundwork, which is a recipe for exactly the premature reversal trading the book is trying to cure. The trilogy has an order for a reason, and this is the last stop, not the first.
The Brooks Books, and Which One You Actually Need
| Book | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar | The whole method in one dense original volume. The unabridged source. |
| Trading Price Action: Trends | The foundation of the trilogy. Read this first; it is where the framework is built. |
| Trading Price Action: Trading Ranges | The middle volume, on the sideways market where most time is spent. |
| Trading Price Action: Reversals (this book) | The capstone, on the hardest trade. Read it last, after Trends at minimum. |
Same method, four doors. This volume is the one you walk through last, not the one you start with.
Beyond sequence, this book inherits the whole method’s traits: it is dense, it is taught through hindsight-annotated charts, it demands long screen time, and it is thin on money management. Those are covered fully in the origin-text review and apply here without repeating them. The one that bites hardest for a reversals volume specifically is the hindsight problem, because a confirmed reversal is obvious after the close and genuinely treacherous to call while the bar is still forming.
Five Ideas Worth Carrying With You
Most reversals are not reversals. They are pauses that a trend survives, and treating them as turns is how retail traders bleed.
The single most valuable idea in the volume. Internalising how often a trend resumes after looking finished quietly removes the most expensive trade most people repeatedly make.
A reversal has to break the trend, fail to resume it, and then prove itself. One of those three is not enough.
Brooks’s insistence on a sequence of confirmation, rather than a single signal, is the discipline that turns reversal trading from gambling into something with a defensible entry. Demand the whole sequence, not the first hint.
The reward for a real reversal is large, which is exactly why the fake ones are so expensive.
The size of the prize is what makes premature reversal trading so seductive and so ruinous. Respecting that asymmetry, big payoff, low base rate, is what keeps you from paying for it over and over.
Understanding reversals makes you a better trend trader, not just a better counter-trend one.
Knowing what a genuine reversal requires lets you stay in a trend through the fakes that shake everyone else out. The volume’s biggest payoff for many readers is fewer premature exits, not more counter-trend entries.
The reversal that is obvious after the close was ambiguous while it formed. Respect the difference.
Because this is taught through finished charts, the confirmations look cleaner in the book than they feel in real time. Carrying that awareness keeps you honest about how much of the read was genuinely available at the right edge.
Common Misreadings of the Book
Misreading #1: “This is the exciting one, so I’ll start here”
It is the capstone, not the entry. Reversals are defined against trends, and the volume assumes you have the Trends material already. Starting here hands you the hardest, most conditional part of the method with no foundation.
Misreading #2: “It teaches me to catch tops and bottoms”
It mostly teaches you not to. Its central lesson is how rarely a reversal is real and how much confirmation to demand. Read as a licence to pick tops, it does the opposite of what the author intends.
Misreading #3: “It replaces the original brick”
It is one third of the reorganised version of the same method. The original packs everything into one volume; the trilogy spreads it across three. This is the reversals slice, not a standalone replacement for the whole method.
Misreading #4: “If I’ve read the Trends volume, this will be easy”
Easier, not easy. It is still dense and still demands screen time, and reversals are the hardest judgements in the framework. Familiarity with Trends is the prerequisite, not a shortcut through the difficulty.
Misreading #5: “The confirmed setups will be as clear live as in the book”
They will not. The charts are annotated after the outcome, so the confirmations read cleanly on the page and feel genuinely ambiguous in real time. Budget for that gap rather than being surprised by it.
Where the Book Falls Short
- Useless out of sequence. It assumes the Trends foundation and does not re-teach it. Read first, it produces exactly the premature reversal trading it aims to cure.
- Inherits the method’s density. Better organised than the original brick, but still a demanding read that assumes the full Brooks vocabulary.
- Hindsight examples bite hardest here. A confirmed reversal is obvious after the close and treacherous at the right edge, and annotated charts cannot close that gap.
- Long screen-time requirement. Like the rest of the method, the judgement takes months of live practice to become reliable.
- Thin on money management. Reward-to-risk per setup, but no full sizing framework, which is especially dangerous for counter-trend trades.
- Overlaps the other Brooks books. If you have the original volume, much of this is a reorganisation of material you already own.
How the Book Fits the Mind · Method · Money Framework
| Pillar | Contribution | What the Book Delivers |
|---|---|---|
| MIND | PRIMARY | Unusually strong for a method book: its core lesson is the patience and discipline to not fight trends too early. |
| METHOD | PRIMARY | A detailed, disciplined treatment of counter-trend and reversal setups within the Brooks framework. |
| MONEY | WEAK | Reward-to-risk per trade only, with no full sizing framework for the counter-trend risk it involves. |
This volume leans harder on the Mind pillar than most method books, because its subject is really impulse control disguised as a set of setups. Read against the Mind · Method · Money framework and The Complete Trader’s Edge, it supplies the patience and the method for one of trading’s hardest decisions, and you supply the sizing that keeps a counter-trend trade from becoming a catastrophe.
Read This Instead Of / Read This After
| Relationship | Book | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Read after | Trading Price Action: Trends by Al Brooks | The mandatory foundation. Reversals are defined against trends, so the Trends volume comes first, without exception. |
| Read instead of | Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar | If you prefer the organised trilogy to the single dense brick, the two are the same method in different packaging. |
| Read alongside | The Art and Science of Technical Analysis | Grimes gives you the evidence discipline to check which reversal reads actually carry an edge for you. |
| Read after | Alpha Trader | The sizing and expectancy architecture that counter-trend trading needs most and this book supplies least. |
| Do not read as | A standalone or a beginner’s book | It is the last volume of a demanding trilogy. Out of sequence it does more harm than good. |
Final Verdict: Should You Read This Book in 2026?
Yes, if you already trade the Brooks method and want the reversals treatment. No, if you are new to it. And the 8.0 again sits above the axis mean, for reasons the whole trilogy shares.
The dimensions this site scores penalise the density, the prerequisite, and the beginner-hostility. Averaged, the axes land near 6.4, which understates the book for the reader it is actually written for.
The 8.0 reflects a judgement the axes cannot carry: for a trader with the foundation, this is the most disciplined treatment of reversal trading in the price-action literature, and its central lesson, that most reversals are traps and patience is the edge, addresses one of the single most expensive habits in retail trading. That reader gets close to a 9. A newcomer who reads it out of sequence gets hurt and should score it far lower. The 8.0 is the weighted answer for the trader this volume was built for, and it states plainly that the mean sits low because the book is a demanding capstone, not because the material is weak. Read Trends first. Then let this one teach you when not to trade.
CTE Rating Breakdown
8.0/10
The Reversals Capstone
| Readability | 5 | |
| Actionability | 8 | |
| Timelessness | 8 | |
| Beginner-Friendly | 3 | |
| Modern Relevance | 8 |
A specialist capstone: the axes average near 6.4, dragged by density and the prerequisite. The 8.0 reflects the depth and discipline the axes cannot score.
Ready to read it?
Available in hardcover and Kindle, as part of the three-volume series.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Trading Price Action: Reversals about?
It is the reversals volume of Al Brooks’s three-part price-action series, focused on counter-trend trading: how to tell a genuine reversal from the far more common failed attempt, and how much confirmation to demand before trading one.
Do I need to read the other Brooks books first?
Yes. This is the capstone volume and assumes the Trends foundation. Read Trading Price Action: Trends, or the original single-volume book, before this one, because reversals are defined entirely in relation to trends.
How is it different from Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar?
They are the same method in different packaging. The original book is one dense volume covering everything; the trilogy splits the method into Trends, Trading Ranges, and Reversals. This is the reversals slice of that reorganisation, not a separate method.
Will it teach me to catch tops and bottoms?
Mostly it teaches you not to try until the market has confirmed the turn. Its core lesson is how rarely a reversal is real, which is the opposite of the top-picking impulse most traders bring to the subject.
Is it good for beginners?
No. It is the last, hardest volume of a demanding method and assumes real prior grounding. A beginner who starts here gets the most conditional part of the framework with none of the foundation.
Why are reversals considered the hardest trades?
Because most apparent reversals fail, the reward for a real one is large, and the temptation to take the fakes early is strong. That combination, low base rate plus big prize, makes premature reversal trading one of the most expensive habits in the retail world.
Does the volume help trend traders too?
Yes. Understanding what a genuine reversal requires helps you stay in a trend through the fakes that shake others out. For many readers the biggest benefit is fewer premature exits, not more counter-trend entries.
Does it cover risk management?
Only reward-to-risk on individual setups. There is no full sizing framework, which matters especially for counter-trend trades, so you must supply the money-management architecture yourself.
Is the method discretionary?
Entirely. It is a way of reading and judging price, not a mechanical rule set, so it takes screen time to develop and cannot be backtested from the page.
What is the single most important takeaway?
That a trend is innocent until proven guilty, and that most reversals should be waited on rather than anticipated. The patience to demand full confirmation is the real edge the volume is trying to install.
About the Author
Al Brooks
Al Brooks is a price-action educator and former physician who documented his bar-by-bar method first in Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar and then in the three-volume Trading Price Action series, of which this reversals book is one part. His work is known for its depth, its detail, and its demands on the reader.
An honest boundary: his standing as a price-action educator with a fully documented method is established and checkable. His specific returns are not documented here to a verifiable standard, so the work is weighed on the coherence of the method rather than on performance claims.
What can be assessed is the teaching, and on reversals specifically it is careful, disciplined, and admirably resistant to the top-picking fantasy that sells so many worse books. He treats the hardest trade with the caution it deserves.
Continue Learning
- Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar Book Review (2026)
- The Art and Science of Technical Analysis Book Review (2026)
- Technical Analysis of Stock Trends Book Review (2026)
- Alpha Trader Book Review (2026)
- The Top Trading Books Explorer
- Recommended Reading for Traders
- The Mind · Method · Money Framework
- The Complete Trader’s Edge — The Book
The Complete Trader's Edge
The full Mind · Method · Money framework. 70 chapters.
View on Amazon →
Market Mayhem
400 years of bubbles, crashes, and the pattern that keeps repeating.
Buy on Amazon →
Greatest Companies
How the world's greatest companies were built — and what traders learn from them.
View on Amazon →
Greatest Traders
Eighty-six lives that explain the markets — Livermore to Madoff, told with the losses left in.
View on Amazon →
