DAYFOREX

This review was originally published on ForexSpirit:

There are plenty of reviews of 'Bird Watching in Lion Country' by Dirk du Toit already out there on the net. Most of the reviewers seem to have liked the book, but that's almost always the way with online reviews isn't it? If you're indifferent or negative about something why would you want to spend any more of your time even thinking about it? You'd want to move on and find and do things that are positive and beneficial for you. So in that sense it is no surprise that my review of BWILC errs on the side of being positive. In fact, I think it is the single most important trading book I have read to date.

This review is not going to be your average, run-of-the-mill book review. I won't be providing an overview or even chapter by chapter breakdown of the book's contents. Pretty much all the concepts and insights that the book contains are now littered throughout my blog postings. The information and the approach to trading the forex market that Dirk du Toit lays out in the four sections of the book have been absorbed by my mind and now colour the way that I look at the forex world. None of the ideas or views put forward in the book are revolutionary in isolation. On the other hand, if your trading education to date has focused primarily on technical indicators, short time frames and 'beating' the market then the contents of the book will open a window on a new world. Dirk asks you to see the forex world afresh. The curtain is drawn back and you see the Wizard behind the curtain for what he really is. The smoke and mirrors are revealed and the once magical facade turns out to be nothing more than a machine controlled by switches and levers.

To keep the Wizard of Oz analogy going for just a bit longer I can only deduce that you already have a good head, possessed of a keen mind and a boundless intellect. There can be no other explanation for you having found my website and it's the only logical rationale for your reading of this book review.

What is not so obvious is whether you are strong of heart and full of courage. You will have to determine that for yourself. I can say that I was emboldened on both counts when I followed through and used the 4x1 methodology that is described in detail in the book. It laid a solid foundation on which I was able to finally take my first tentative steps as an indepedent trader. No longer was I going to be reliant on others for trading signals or any other propriatary insight. I decided to have the courage to strike out on my own. Make my own decisions. Let my trading account balance rise or fall based purely on the decisions that I took.

After making such a step forward you then begin to view things about the markets and the trading world differently. With the journey finally underway it becomes easier to determine what will or won't help along the way. You're able to cut through the noise. A different way of looking at the market is presented. One that more closely meshes with the reality of the market and its gaggle of traders. You uncover the true belly of the beast.

How I originally found out about BWILC is lost in the mists of time. It obviously wasn't an instant revelation as I have no strong recollection of coming across the e-book or Dirk's website. It was most likely through a link on either the MoneyTec or Forex Factory forums. It obviously peaked my interest enough to purchase a copy of the book.

I can remember thoroughly enjoying reading the material in the book and learned to view the forex market anew. The lessons and wisdoms contained in the book bubbled away in the back of my mind for many months before I took further action on them. I read the book during a time when I was coming to the realisation that I needed to form my own approach to trading. I had to find out what worked for me. Many different people are able to trade in many different ways, all using seperate and distinct trading methodologies, all of which result in consistent profits. Such successful traders have found an approach to trading that is as unique as they are. They have taken a trading system that might be similar to that used by many other people, but they've melded it to suit their own personality and psychology.

I was in the process of trying to discover what approach best suited me. Most other trading systems I was investigating were technical in nature. I had quickly discounted mechnical trading systems. Discretionary was the way to go for me.

It soon came time to review the various methods I had been investigating. It was a pretty hard decision to make. I knew that which ever method I went with I would have to give it my all. There would be no point in following something half-heartedly. I would only be doing myself a diservice, wasting my own time and energy.

The 4x1 methodology put forward in 'Bird Watching In Lion Country' kept bubbling to the surface of my thoughts. As I whittled down the choices of how I should proceed in my forex trading career, it was the only method that seems to stand true. I obviously had further questions and doubts about my own ability to use it successfully. At the same time, it was an approach to trading forex that seemed simple, robust and adaptable all at the same time.

The ideas and trading approach put forward in the book are complete in and of themselves. It is perfectly possible to take them and make them work straight off the bat, if you are comfortable in doing things yourself and you have the time and resources to work through the inevitable kinks.

But like any new piece of information that you come across in your trading journey, the contents of the book are just another step along the road. Some people like to figure things out on their own. You'll find more than one comment on forums ridiculing someone for having spent money on some product or other when the information is available free somewhere else. While that is almost certainly true, it is putting the pieces of information together into a conhesive whole that can be the tricky part. You can either do all the legwork yourself, which will take time but not a lot of money, or you can hopefully buy the right products for you, which cost money but save you time.

Looking to save time, while perfectly happy to pay for this services, I signed up to Dirk's mentoring course in October 2005. Doing so allowed me to continue to meld the 4x1 methodology into something that I could call my own. While Dirk no longer offers the one-on-one mentoring course, he will soon be releasing a more standalone product that features many of the exercises and information that were part of the more personal mentoring programme. [Note: the 'mentor-in-a-box' program has been scraped and this DrForex community has arisen to take its place.]

Reading and acting on the information in this book was my first major step to becoming a real trader. Before that I was as much a bona fide trader as the actors that portray doctors are real doctors on television shows such as E.R. and Grey's Anatomy.

After you have learnt all the basics of trading and have figured out what you think it is you need to know to make money from your trading endevours, each time you read a new trading book you are thankful if you glean one or two new nuggets of information that you hope will improve your performance. This book did more than that for me. It was more akin to a paradigm shift. I went from looking at the forex market the way that the brokers and their marketing wizards want me to see things to seeing a whole lot more. My whole perspective shifted and I got to re-examine everything I knew about trading up till that point in a new light.

Obviously not everything about this book can be fantastic so let's look at some of the issues.

One of the main ones that will aggrevate most people is that this is only an e-book (electronic book). You will have to read it on your desktop computer or laptop. You can't buy it in hardback or paperback, so no lounging in your back yard's hammock, sipping a pina colada, enjoying the sunshine and reading this book. You could print it out, but at 238 pages in length it's not an ideal option.

The writing style can be idosyncratic in places. I'm not sure if English is Dirk's first or second language (since he's from South Africa is could be Africaans) but he sometimes has a way with words that can be almost round about in nature. After receiving such Dirk-isms unaltered for many months now in his daily briefing e-mails I hope that I can de-tangle even the oddest syntactical constructions. The book has been edited to remove such linguistical oddities but this does not completely eliminate the occasional difficulty in understanding certain passages. Fortunately the concepts and information that is written about are simple in nature and so the writing style does not detract from the reader's understanding.

Some people have found the use of analogies and storytelling in the book to be superflous. I can't say that I am one of them, but that may be mainly due to my fondness of them.

At the end of the day it comes down to whether the approach and information in this book has helped make me money. The only answer I can give to that is a resounding 'Yes'. To see how I have acted on this knowledge you only have to read my journal which has chronicled my trading activities since my first demo trades using the 4x1 methodology.

Since every trader is different your mileage will obviously vary. You might find the book to be incredibly useful or utterly pointless, it all depends on where you are in your trading career and how well you know what works for you.

If simplicity and the possibility that fundamentals might offer something that you can't quite find in technical indicators then this book might well be very eye-opening. If some of my previous posts, such as Look! No Indicators and The Keys to Trading Success, appeal then you won't go wrong by picking up this book.

For full disclosure purposes, I also need to make it clear that I am an affiliate seller of this book. If you purchase BWILC through any of the links on my website I will receive a commision on each sale. Any such earnings currently go towards the costs of hosting and running my blog. I have no problems in promoting this material as I am practising what I preach.