Book Review: Naked Forex (Alex Nekritin and Walter Peters)

Naked Forex: High-Probability Techniques for Trading Without Indicators is a rare case of a book, for which you could read some 5-star rating reviews and some 1-star rating reviews on Amazon and they all would be completely valid and justified. Yes, this is an example of an overpriced book with a very small amount of new information and it is ridden with ads. At the same time, Naked Forex is one of the best guides for newbies and lost traders — it will really help a struggling trader to focus on what is important and will give them all the necessary tools to have a chance for profitable trading.

Controversial

My own opinion about this book is rather ambiguous. The authors (Alex Nekritin and Walter Peters) fail to mention a lot of nuances and provide in-depth explanation of any of the concerned subjects. The book looks too superficial to be of any use to a more or less experienced trader. A big turnoff for me was the foreword written by one of the worst trading book authors. I almost stopped reading it at that point. Now I am glad I didn't. The book has nearly everything a prospecting Forex trader would need: a system (more than one, actually), money management rules, explanation on risk-taking, trading psychology 101, instructions to gain expertise without risking money, etc.

What is it about?

Although, quite many subjects are involved in this book, its main topic is definitely the naked Forex trading methodology. The book is divided into three parts:

Naked Forex trading revealed

Basically, this part is dedicated to indicator-bashing and introduction of indicator-free charts as the fundamental part of naked Forex trading. The concept of support and resistance zones is introduced in this part. You may skip the first part if you are not fan of indicators or if you use them sparingly and know well what exactly they represent and what they cannot show. The authors' definition of support and resistance zones is not very innovative too, though some interesting ideas can be found there.

Naked-trading methodology

It describes six different naked Forex patterns. They are actually six bullish and six bearish patterns but bullish and bearish are exact vertical reflections of each other. These six patterns are:

• the last kiss — a sort of pull-back entry after breakout
• the big shadow — a sort of outside day
• wammies and moolahs — special cases of double bottoms and double tops
• kangaroo tails — a kind of pinbars
• the big belt — a more original candlestick pattern involving filled gap
• the trendy kangaroo — a trend-continuation species of kangaroo tails

Additionally, some position exit strategies are introduced. Two exit methods are given for impatient traders who cannot sit with open position for too long (gunners): zone exit and split exit. Two exit methods are introduced for traders who prefer long-term positions with lower win rate but higher reward/risk ratio (runners): ladder exit and three-bar exit.

Trading psychology

The final part holds the juice of the book if you are not too interested in authors' candlestick pattern interpretations. Basically, you will learn the difference between expert traders and failing traders here. You will also learn to bridge the gap between your current (struggling) state and the state of expertise in Forex trading. You will understand how to avoid a vicious circle of changing your trading system constantly. You will find how to find or modify a trading strategy to fit your personality. You will learn the exact step-by-step process to become an expert trader and even one little trick to hasten the transformation. You will learn to find confidence in yourself (though this chapter looks quite detached from the topic of Forex trading). The final chapter will also explain how trading risk management is related to overall success of a trader, which is quite an important topic, in my opinion.

Advantages

The list of things I liked about Naked Forex is quite short:

• Working trading system giveaway. Even if they are not too different from some traditional candlestick patterns. Even if there is no statistics presented for their success rate. Which could also be a good thing as it stimulates backtesting.
• Emphasis on a trader, one's discipline, and commitment as the crucial ingredient for success in foreign exchange speculation.
• A call to action in a form of six-step list to becoming an expert trader. Although its effectiveness is debatable, it is a nice thing for those traders who are lost in their education and failed attempts to earn money.
• Nothing in this book will be too hard to understand even for a 10 years old child. Of course, it also creates a problem — see the relevant entry in disadvantages.

Disadvantages

Here are some of the negative points you will encounter reading this book:

• For a book that costs more than $40 (for an electronic Kindle version!), it has too many ads. Why should anyone pay for reading ads? The authors pimp two of their websites https://www.fxjake.com/book/ and http://www.marketbiofeedback.com/ (which is now defunct). The former gets much more publicity than the latter. Anyway, both sites are annoying lead-gathering funnels.
• Those ads are completely useless. They seem contextual and the surrounding text in the book will make you believe that you will get to some interesting explanation if you click the link. Unfortunately, it will get you only to the same moronic auto-play video with a form, whose sole purpose is to get your email address for further spamming with marketing trash.
• Unfounded claims. Yes, this book is definitely not a research paper, but occasional reference to experimental backtests or some other independent sources would help in many cases. Interestingly, one of the cases where Alex and Walter actually cite a source is also a gross example of statistics misrepresentation. They say that only 25.2 percent of traders are consistently profitable because Forex Magnates U.S. Forex Brokers Profitability Report for Quarter 2, 2011 features this figure. Since this figure is only valid for a period of 3 months, calling it "consistency" is a serious exaggeration.
• Repetitions. To make readers remember what they say and to inflate the size of the book, the authors repeat everything several times. Sometimes, it becomes so obvious that it even looks funny.

To buy or not to buy?

It looks like the answer is pretty easy here. If you are new to trading or if you are an experienced trader disappointed with the indicators, Naked Forex will be a great book for you. Otherwise, I would recommend to spend your money and time reading something else.

If you have any questions, comments, or opinion about Naked Forex by Alex Nekritin and Walter Peters, please feel free to discuss it on our Forex forum.