Trading Books

I have this book, and I love it. I'm surprised so few people know it's in print, yet everyone who sees my copy instantly says 'I have to have that!'

If you're trying to get a child to eat a homemade lunch, this book will help. Although some of the ingredients sound a little strange to Westerners, if you just ask your child to try the creation many of them will happily snatch it up and munch away. Cuteness counts with kids.

The directions were clear to me; I can only guess the reviewer had never made sushi before. If you have, this book will pose no problem. Once you figure out the fiddly details of how much rice goes in each portion of the designs, they go together quickly.

One caveat: if you are shopping for some items in the book, and don't have a dedicated Japanese grocery in your city, take the book with you to the Asian store you end up at. You might be able to get the items under another name/language. Failing that, you can always cheat and use a drop of food coloring to tint your rice vinegar, but the flavor will not be as good.

These designs work for adults as well as children - don't think only kids like these. When I unwrap my lunch it always gets noticed when one of these sushi creations is inside. This book is well worth the price.

This really is a must by if you like making Japanese bentos.

About half the book were sushi made in the fashion of the sushi on the cover, which were all very cute, but the second half of the book is my favorite. The book had many easy recipes on small bento dishes and light Japanese style soups. The sushi also gets more creative in the second half. There are recipes on beautifully put together rice balls and sushi that looked like small little cakes. My favorite was the kitty rice balls. The book teaches you to get creative with inari, cut designs with fish cake, and make little food decorations for bento (such as cauliflower sheep).

If you find the hana sushi to hard to make, you should at least manage to make the other types of sushi in the book. They're pretty easy, and in my opinion, more beautiful.

In Japan, regarding Japanese food, there is a saying that you "eat with your eyes before you eat with your mouth." Nowhere is this more evident than in the fabulous and sometimes bizarre "Hana Sushi," where chefs Akiko Namiki and Eriko Teranishi have designed an astounding variety of decorative sushi sure to liven up any party or occasion. Provided, of course, you can actually make them.

"Hana Sushi" is not for beginning sushi chefs. This is an intermediate/advanced book that assumes some previous familiarity with making sushi rolls. There is some guidance as to making the individual designs, but the fundamentals of rolling sushi should be mastered before you tackle these more-intricate creations. Fortunately, there are many sushi fundamental guides out there, so no one should be completely lost.

When you feel confident, there is a roll in here for pretty much every occasion. For Christmas, there are snowmen and Christmas trees, for Easter a bunny. The majority does not fit such a festive theme, but rather individual motifs such as animals (panda, kitten, chick, butterfly, piglet, etc...) fruit (grapes, apple, cherries, etc...,) vehicles (balloons, cars, trains, etc...) and the very Japanese motif of flowers (dandelion, tulip, peach blossoms, cherry blossoms, etc...) On top of this, there are even more adventurous creations such as a sushi cake and a pair of really lovely edible dolls.

There are enough tacklable designs in "Hana Sushi" to make it practical as well as fun to look at. While I don't think I will be serving up anyone a "princess sushi cake" anytime soon, I will put some simple snowmen on the table at Christmas time, and probably a smoked salmon roll or two done uramaki style with the salmon on the outside. A good cook book overall (well, not really a cook book as there isn't much cooking going on!) and one that I am glad to have in my library.

The Handbook of Loan Syndications and Trading should be required reading for banking lawyers, bankers and borrowers. As a law school professor teaching in this area and former banking lawyer, the book opens up an area that is quickly transforming and changing the world's credit and lending markets. I found the book to be highly readable, concise and extremely helpful. The book is equally as valuable for the expert as well as the novice.

Although the LSTA helped drive its publication, the book is not a shill for the loan syndication market. Instead, its involvement has served as a catalyst to enlist authors who are truly the best and the brightest in this area. Without its involvement, many of these authors would probably never have participated in such an undertaking.

The book is valuable on both a micro and macro basis. It provides an excellent overview of the loan syndications market, helping the reading to appreciate and understand its depth, development and sophistication. On a micro level, the Handbook provides detailed analysis and instruction for those involved in negotiating and trading loans on a day to day basis. The Handbook is also easily accessed, with an excellent table of contents, index and glossary, allowing the reader to pick and choose topics of interest.

Christian Johnson
Law Professor, Loyola University Chicago School of Law

The book is strictly meant for those professionals involved in the field of putting together one of these loan arrangements or in doing trading of the created loans in a secondary market. It appears comprehensive, at least to a layman. And even for the latter, much of the text can be intelligible with careful parsing.

The biggest contrast between loans and stocks and bonds arises when considering trading. Stocks are, in some sense, fungible. So too with bonds. But the authors point out that this is certainly not so with loans. Each loan is often customised. Which adds a complexity that can defy easy valuations for trading purposes. To wit, a key section of the text addresses how to price such loans. Non-trivial.

I recently received and read The Handbook of Loan Syndications and Trading. I purchased it because I am a lawyer who has recently begun working in the real estate and mortgage loan trading area, and wanted to get some deeper background on the loan sales and trading business operations of the financial institution clients I serve.

The Loan Sales and Trading Association (LSTA), the trade association for the loan sales and trading industry, has outdone itself with this fine book, which is a model of clarity which will set the standard in this field for years to come. It has contributions from a host of top experts in this field. In 20 years of practicing law, this work is by a country mile the most comprehensive and clearest professional book I have ever read. It does exactly the job I needed of providing the business background for a lawyer who works in this area. It would also be of great value to people who work in the financial services industry who work in the loan sales and trading area, as well as to those who work in other financial services areas who need to understand the expansive growth and functioning of the loan sales and trading field.

I cannot recommend this superb book highly enough.

This book is great for a novice. He outlines techniques in technical analysis and even a little fundamental analysis. From there, the reader can choose which method to expand on through further reading.

Great combination of broad overview, and specific analytical techniques. I powered through this book in a few days...partly to quench my newfound thirst for daytrading education, and partly because it is so well written and easy to read.
It wasn't dumbed down and it wasn't too technical. Good for beginner to intermediate trader. This is NOT a complete trading guide by any means, but it is a wonderful overview. If you want a lot of theory, this is not the book. The author recommends books on certain topics if you want to expand your knowledge (apparently there is an entire book devoted to candlestick charts).

This book is a great introduction to trading and technical analysis. The author explains the technical analysis patterns, and more importantly, the financial psychology behind those patterns. He explains how supply and demand, and the human behavior of greed and fear create those patterns.

The only shortcoming is that there isn't much material on the other important aspects of trading like money management, position sizing, risk management, system testing / validation. For that, you would still need a book like Van K. Tharp's "Trade your Way to Financial Freedom" or Marcel Link's "High Probability Trading". I would have rated this 4 and 1/2 stars if there was such a rating. Worth more than 4 stars, but not quite 5 stars.

Overall, this book is a great primer, and would still be a very good value at twice the price.

This book is an excellent source of information and inspiration for anyone interested in design - not only industrial design, though the book covers the topic very well, but design in general, as a form of art. Filled with short biographies of famous designers and quick historical overviews of firms that made impact on design, this books gives an excellent overview of the development of functional design in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Aside from this, it has two very interesting sections - "Themes and Materials" and "Case Studies." "Themes and Materials" focuses just on that - the main directions and trends of design in the past two centuries, as well as revolutionary materials that changed the way people worked, played and consumed. "Case Studies" presents several case studies of ordinary (in our view) products, such as the iron, the typewriter, the telephone, etc., and the way the design of these products has changed to reflect their times. The book also includes a design timeline with most important industrial design milestones.

The only negative things I can say about this book is that it focuses mainly on US, European (German, Italian and Scandinavian, more specifically) and Japanese firms and inventors, and very little, if anything at all, is said about designers and firms from Canada, South America, Eastern Europe, the countries of the former Soviet Union and Asia.

Overall, it is an excellent reference and guide for anyone interested in design and creative thinking. Like all Taschen books, this book is well written, concise yet articulate; beautifully illustrated and printed.

This book is a great general reference for the world of industrial design. It not only covers top firms and designers, but includes a section on materials and their influence on design. It is not a judgement of good or bad design, but rather a chance to look at all approaches to consumer product development. The images are beautiful, and the book itself is very well-designed. As an industrial design student, the struggle to find interesting text is constant--this one does the trick.

If you take even the slightest interest in the design of your toothbrush, the history behind your washing machine, or the evolution of the telephone, you'll take an even greater interest in this new book. This comprehensive volume traces more than three hundred designers and design-led companies, with more than seven hundred illustrations of their most important designs.

Individual designers and design firms can be referenced directly via the A-Z of Industrial Design section, which covers more than 550 pages; here you'll find the likes of Enzo Ferrari, Philippe Starck, Zanussi and Apple Computer, among many others. The Case Studies section tracks the history of everyday household appliances from their very beginnings to the present day, illustrating how, for example, your washing machine made the fascinating journey from a wooden tub with gears and cranks to the sleek white cube that it is today. For those interested in the more technical side of industrial design, there's the Themes and Materials section, referencing technological developments and processes such as plywood, steam power and plastics and introducing topics ranging from packaging and branding to CAD (computer assisted design).

Exploding with color, aesthetics, and style, Industrial Design is informative and fun. You'll have a hard time putting it down and it will change the way you look at everything around you.

I like this Holy Bible because it does not have the pagan symbols the Nelson and other publishing companys place on and in the Bible. The trinity can't be proved. The cross was a tool of death. Idols of the cross, the fish, the trinity and many other symbols are to be avoided if we are to worship the true Jesus Christ. The modern translations i.e. NIV and RSV are not the word of God! Do a comparision and you will find it so. It does matter which Bible you read. TP

I await the Platinum edition of this Bible. I bought the Gold edition and found it simple, straitforward and easy to use. The gold edition is bonded leather however and very thin at that.

The typeface is generous. If you highlight with yellow magic marker, there is bleed through to the next page but it is liveable.

I chose a reference Bible after owning numerous study Bibles. Annotations found in Study Bibles are good at various stages of growth, but reference Bibles force more independant study: allowing the cross reference and concordance use to let the Bible be it's own comentary. It's harder to dig for yourself, but the manna that God's Word gives you is your own, not merely the opinion of the annotator. While many good people have annotated a number of study Bibles, sometimes the notes point you in doctrinal directions and away from discovery on your own.

If you can, buy both types and glean from the annotations, then dig in using the reference Bible and let God lead you in what he wants to reveal and teach.

Let me start by saying, I am not attempting to review the Bible here. The Bible is the greatest book ever written and the unequivocal Word of God! I am a reviewing this printing of the Bible.
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Now to this printing, I have personally bought over 7 copies, 1 for me and 1 for my wife and the other were purchased on behalf of other friends. The print is very legible and the quality of the binding is excellent. I do find however that with regular heavy usage the average life expectancy is about 5 year. After that, the binding starts to weaken and pages start to fall out. Nonetheless I recommend it! I could have done without the Book introductions and would have loved a smaller bible with the same print size but I assume that this would only shorten the life of the binding. I find that Nelson BIbles tend to have better concordances and better references though, but never could find one that was as easy to read ( I'm talking font & font size here) so I recommend this bible without hesitation. Anyone who has used mine for a few minutes has wanted one.

Few books give insight into the global markets like Tom has done in this book. Our society is constantly becoming more global, and understanding the global market is a key to being a successful investor. I will definitely recommend it to other people.

I have read quite a few global investing books and few have come close to being as insightful as The Markets Never Sleep. This book, just like his last one, offers an education that can only come from a lifetime of making a living from the markets.

The author makes some valid points about the globalisation and interdependence of markets. But there is a lot of repetition and the treatment is fairly elementary. Could be useful for beginners.

While a large percentage of individuals do not achieve financial success in the futures markets, traders who do succeed possess a solid understanding of risk and exercise a disciplined program of loss containment and money management. Nazer J. Balsara's Money Management Strategies For Futures Traders provides a wealth of materials for futures and stocks traders alike. The book is a must-read and a relatively easy-read for those who wish to enhance their risk management sophistication with complex tools and who believe that the best way to survive and prosper in the markets it to contain your losses, play defensively and let profits ride.

All trading opportunities are not created equally and part of a trader's job is ferreting out the best markets to trade. The chapter on commodity selection presents four approaches to market selection, based largely on the work of J. Welles Wilder, the father of ADX (Average Directional Index Indicator) and RSI (Relative Strength Index). Here, the book is a good review of Wilder's ADX but focuses on the less-known aspect of his work: the commodity selection index. Wilder's approach uses ADX to identify futures yielding the greatest dollar-value price-moves for a given margin investment, in short, getting you in on the most appealing trades. Balsara also shows the utility of Wilder's price movement index when it is it is not possible to determine or estimate reward, thereby enhancing the analysis and return in mechanical trading systems. Sharpe ratios are also considered as a way of measuring risk-adjusted returns.

The text gives useful approaches to managing risk through stop-loss orders by laying out the usage of time stops, dollar-value stops and volatility stops. There is also a presentation on how to survive locked-limit markets by creating synthetic options positions, spreads or offsetting positions in the cash markets.

A studied read of this finance professor's work will help traders develop both the skill and the art of disciplined risk-taking.

This book was released in 1992 -- and is still as essential today to traders as it was 16 years ago. It seems like it is a secret gem of a book since there are only 2 Amazon.com reviews posted (both of which are five and four stars) in all these years.

Maybe it's time for this classic to be re-discovered by a new generation of traders and investors. Surprising to me that the book "The Trading Game - Playing by the Numbers to Make Millions" sells so many books. The gimmick title "...Make Millions..." should make you wonder if it is authentic -- get Professor Balsara's book instead and learn the true principles of managing and understanding your risk.

There is a reason Balsara's book is cited by 34 other books (most of which are written by the master traders of our time) and it is because this is the textbook that the master traders refer to to create their money management strategies. This book has the formulas and the theory you need to manate your risk and avoid the risk-of-ruin.

I found out about Balsara's book from Bennett McDowell, he recommends Balsara's book in his book "A Trader's Money Management System" and encourages his students to use Balsara's risk-of-ruin tables when designing their own personal money management system. It improves your bottom line when you calculate your current payoff ratio and win ratio and accurately determine the risk you should be taking on each trade by referring to the risk-of-ruin tables.

For some traders they should risk 2% of their trading capital on each trade. For other more experienced traders they can benefit by risking 10%. The key is to do the calculations and know where you stand at any given moment.

Do yourself a favor, buy this book or McDowell's book instead of "The Trading Game".

I only wish I had utilized the statistical tools the author provides earlier in my trading career. However, I did find the book in time. Don't let the reference to statistics scare you. The author uses basic alegebra to aid you in trade selection and risk control.

This book may not guarantee you success in trading, but I do believe that if one does not apply the basic money management principles presented by Prof. Balsara, sooner or later, failure in the futures market is almost certain.

If you can't name the 5 basic steps of money management, I suggest you stop trading immediately, get this book with a couple of ticks worth of money you'll not be losing while your not trading. Read it a few times, set up your money management spreadsheet and may you trade with clarity previously unknown in your endeavors in the futures market.

Very well researched and well written. It lacks only one thing. It needs a glossary for those of us unfamiliar with all of the terms specific to the financial industry. Like any technical book, if it is to garner a wider readership it must have a glossary. I had to read it with a dictionary at my side.

JHCARLISLE

This is a FASCINATING book about a business, institution, and people who have been a driving force in the commodities business. It is very well written, capturing the trust and intelligence of those who have contributed to this unique market.

Arlene Bronstein's brilliant descriptions of the Chicago Board of Trade is insightful. The research of over 20 members and information that went into the book is intelligent and is an accurate account about what took place inside the board of trade.

It also gave me the opportunity to discover all the different experiences that real members had and the thought process behind the hallmarks of the exchange.

This is my favorite book of 2008 and a must read for someone that likes to hear about brilliant people's real decisions and thoughts as it relates to business, finance and relationships.

This book offers an excellent introduction to the mechanics of online investing. Don't look for the secret to successful investment results. But if you already have the basics of asset allocation and markets, it is a well written how-to guide to assist you in dramatically lowering your transaction costs. But hurry...this information will become stale at lightning speed.

This book is an entertaining, written in easy non-technical language, but VERY basic text about what types of investing and trading exist, how they work (i.e., what and where is traded), and where to look for further information about these issues on the internet. The book does a good job discussing what sources of information can be trusted on the web, and which not, and gives an useful list of URLs on every investing-related topic you can think of. The comparative analysis of online brokerages and their services and fees is quite good. Stocks, IPOs, mutual funds, bonds, futures, and options are explained on a very simple level, which will help those who never heard these words to understand what they mean. I liked that the book is unbiased: unlike most other guides on online investing it does not promote a specific web page or a specific online brokerage. This book is fun to read, and it would be a good starting point for people who decided to go into online investing (but never did it before) and have little or no internet experience. However, my opinion is that it does not woth purchasing if you already have investing experience or read a few other books about investing because the book is just too simple and not as much about investing strategies as about the web resources, discussion boards, and investor stories. The authors' analysis of what drives the discussion boards is probably the only part which I have not seen anywhere else; this part may be useful for investors on all levels. Therefore, my rating is 5 stars for the novices, 3 for everyone else, which makes it 4 stars in average. By the way, most of this book is available online on wall street journal web page, so check it out before you buy.

The Wall Street Journal has come out with a series of clear and concise investing guides in the past. This one, from the editors of the interactive site, is a little bit more involved than the other ones, but just as helpful. Unlike some other online investing guides I've read, this book doesn't advocate risky trading, and leans in the direction of more conservative advice. Still, it covers a wide variety of trading strategies for the more adventurous. It's a good introduction for beginners, but it also is helpful to an experienced investor who hopes to become a more well-rounded investor. I highly recommend it.

This is an excellent book if you have at least a master's
degree in math or a related discipline.
If your eyes glaze over a page full of equations, then this is
not for you.
Having said that, for the fearless that want to get a good
understanding of the underlying theory - it's an excellent work.

As an interest rate derivative trader, and MS Computational Finance graduate, I am constantly in search of new texts that combine the right amount of theory and state of the art practice. The new text by Peter James definitely fits the bill for my needs. He provides the reader with clearly written fundamentals that are used to build up to complex topics. But most importantly Mr. James has a unique talent for including great practical examples throughout his text, something lacking in many option theory texts. This text will definitely remain on my desk as a great reference tool.

This book is not for everyone. It is not for those who just want a once-over-lightly introduction to options. But it is the perfect book for those who want to combine rigor and practicality. Unlike the many books by mathematicians who claim to be writing for a general audience but in fact are trying to impress their colleagues (mostly by being unintelligible), James writes extraordinarily clearly. But even more important, he has practical experience with all the solution techniques he describes (binomial models, differential equations, Monte Carlo), and expertly describes their uses, their limitations, and the relationships among them. Unlike many authors, he has no apparent bias towards any one of the three solution methods. He also presents numerical examples to illustrate his points. The final section of the book is mathematically more advanced, and allows the reader to ascend to a higher level of sophistication. It's clear that James wants the reader to understand. Bravo!!!

This may be the perfect book to read after mastering a superb introductory text like Robert L. McDonald, Derivatives Markets.