Al Brooks [repack] May 2026

In a world of trading saturated with lagging indicators, black-box algorithms, and subjective “gut feelings,” Dr. Al Brooks stands as a radical empiricist. A former ophthalmologist who walked away from a lucrative medical career to dissect the charts full-time, Brooks is the high priest of pure price action. To read his work is to believe that every single bar on a candlestick chart contains a universe of data—fear, greed, accumulation, distribution, and exhaustion—if only one knows how to read the Braille. The Origin Story: From Lasik to Limit Orders Al Brooks earned his medical degree from the University of Chicago and spent the early 1980s performing eye surgery. Trading began as a side hobby, but like many who discover technical analysis, he was quickly seduced by the challenge. Unlike medicine, where protocols are established and anatomy is fixed, the markets were a chaotic, living organism.

A trend is simply a series of higher highs and higher lows (uptrend) or lower highs and lower lows (downtrend). Brooks is pragmatic: you trade in the direction of the trend until the trend ends. He doesn't fight the tape. He famously notes that "The trend is your friend... until the end." al brooks

Most traders lose money in the chop. Brooks views a trading range not as chaos, but as a "battlefield" where bulls and bears are evenly matched. In a range, you buy low, sell high, and wait for a breakout. The critical insight? 70-80% of breakouts fail. Brooks teaches that you should assume a breakout is false until the market proves otherwise by creating a "follow-through" bar. In a world of trading saturated with lagging