DislikedThe forum is nice, but not very active, it's mostly the chatroom that's active. I checked it out a couple months ago or so, but I lost the link/password and I'm too lazy to find them and go back in.Ignored
After reading it there is one thing I wanted to mention; if you're not participating in the chat, I'm not surprised you would question the value proposition.
For people like yourself, who have already read my FF forum posts, the book will be 90% review and probably isn't worth your $150. I'd be the first to admit that - and if I'm not mistaken, I said as much in one of the order flow threads.
The book is really meant to save time. The time it requires to read all my posts. Or as pointed out in the previous post; the time it takes to read the academic papers from which the ideas were developed. If you haven't read all that stuff, the book is easily worth the investment in saved time. But that isn't all people are paying for...
As you pointed out, the purchase also includes the forum and real time trader chat.
I'd agree 100% that the forum is.. meh. It acts more as a repository for things discussed in chat then a traditional forum and there isn't much more to redeem it then that...
The chat however, is a critical component of the product and I'd argue that its where the majority of its value resides.
While the book provides background and context, its within the chat that people learn how to APPLY the ideas the book outlines. And it's within the chat that we discuss the substantial body of info that didn't find its way into the book. Within it we discuss all the things that are highly situational and/or not easily describable in the abstract. And that body of info is quite vast...
We're quickly closing in on 1 million chat comments. While I'll grant that a good portion of that is banter and bullshit, there is still a ton of useful info. Someone recently posted a consolidated word document of useful chat posts and its ~40 pages long. But that's just the "general" trading advice. Every day there are extensive conversations about how one individual or another can optimize their system.. or construct a system around some idea... or we are discussing how to exploit that particular days trading activity. And the list goes on.
What I'm trying to say is that, if your new to trading, the book will easily provides $150 in value on its own. But that's really just the beginning of the process. The chat is where you really get value for your dollar and I'm confident that were you to spend some time with it, you would whole heartedly agree.
In any event, thanks again for your purchase and your review.
May luck be with you.