Asking the market what is happening is always a better approach than telling it what to do, argues John Bollinger, creator of the famous Bollinger Bands.

While trading warrants and options in the late 1970s and into the 1980s when index option trading started, Bollinger focused on volatility as the key variable. From volatility he created his own approach to trading bands: and thus Bollinger Bands were born. In "Bollinger on Bollinger Bands", the creator of this widely-used technique explains how this superior technical analysis tool came to be and how it is used. It is the book only Bollinger himself could write. Bollinger Bands are plotted two standard deviations above and below a 20-day simple moving average.

In this concise, straightforward volume, Bollinger shows investors that the data used to calculate the standard deviation are the same data as those used for a simple moving average. Investors will learn how to use moving standard deviations to plot bands around a moving average. While Bollinger's primary focus is on the intermediate term, he explains why and how short- and long-term applications work just as well. Focusing on the intermediate trend gives investors recourse to the short- and long-term arenas for reference, a valuable concept. Bollinger explains why, for the stock market and individual stocks, a 20-day period is optimal for calculating Bollinger Bands. Bollinger Bands can be applied to virtually any market or security, answering the question of whether prices are high or low on a relative basis.

By understanding how to incorporate this technique into an investment strategy, readers - whether long-term investors or day traders - will learn how to compare price and indicator action to arrive at rational decisions. While Bollinger would be the first to say that there is no holy grail in investing, "Bollinger on Bollinger Bands" should provide investors not only with a unique insight to one of today's most useful trading tools, but with a commonsense approach to successful investing.