Trading Books

A well done treatise on the application of the scientific method to the field of TA. Highly recommended unless you would rather believe in fairy-tales ;)

This book does not provide anything new about the current understanding of TA indicators. The properties and behaviors of the TA indicators under statistical studies are known long time ago. At the same time, this is not a book for anyone to study Monte Carlo, or Data mining. Simply put it: IT IS WORTHLESS.

EBTA is a great book for any technical analysis (TA) based trading system developer. This book attempts to put technical analysis on a more rigorous scientific footing that will allow it to flourish as an empirical science.

As I see it, this book makes two main points:

1) Traditional TA techniques are often defined so vaguely that they are properly classified as pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is characterized by claims that are so vague, they cannot be falsified. When a TA claim cannot be falsified, it cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny, and so it can be perpetuated even when it holds no merit in predicting market movements.

Therefore, any TA techniques that one uses should be programmable (in a computer language) so they can be backtested and either falsified or tentatively supported.

2) Even if a backtested trading rule/strategy performs well in a backtest, this is merely a necessary and not a sufficient condition for believing this rule/strat will perform well in the future. Market movements are governed, at best, by a combination of randomness and predictable market structure. If one is not careful, backtested rules/strats may merely represent curve-fitting to the random elements of market movement that will not repeat themselves in the future. If/when one trades based on such overfitted strategies, one is almost sure to lose money.

To combat this, one must submit backtesting results to rigorous statistical tests in order to reject results that are likely to be examples of such overfitting. Along these lines, the author gives a very clear introduction to basic statistical concepts/procedures, describes several out-of-sample testing methods, and explains 2 other advanced methods (White's Reality Check and the Monte Carlo Permutation method), that can all be used to analyze backtesting results. Again, applying these methods to backtesting results can help the researcher reject those results that are likely to be examples of overfitting due to data-mining efforts.

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The author goes into great detail about how and why the procedures he presents should be used, and he also includes a backtesting case study clearly illustrating how to apply the methods he has introduced earlier in the text.

The clarity and explicitness of the entire book is a refreshing change from most books on TA. The author provides enough detail for anyone interested to implement any and all the procedures he describes (including White's Reality Check and the Monte Carlo Permutation method) for themselves.

If you are looking for a book that will provide you with a specific trading strategy or an in-depth description of relevant data-mining techniques, look elsewhere, but don't ignore this book even in those cases.

For, no matter what particular systems/strategies you create/discover, this book will show you how to properly analyze your results. If your results pass the tests this book suggests you use in such analyses, you will be much more likely to make money going forward as opposed to being fooled by randomness.

I have been groping for a way to apply mathematical rigor to my back testing of investment strategies for a couple of years now. This book provides all of the answers I was looking for, in detail. In a field where people rely more on superstition and old wives' tales than sound evidence, this book is a breath of fresh air.

The author is quite exhaustive in his treatment of the subject matter. Most technical textbooks leave out important steps required to duplicate procedures, leaving the reader frustrated. This one gives every step.

Portions of the book are a bit redundant. I think some editing to reduce the redundancy and page count would have been beneficial.

Warning: some mathematics required. If you have a Bachelor's degree in math, science or engineering, you should be okay.

I was conflicted in writing a review of this text - it provides information and method's that I would've preferred were not accessible to market participants... with the exception of myself, naturally. That said, the book deserves recognition as required reading for anyone actively engaged in searching for predictive "signals" using historical data. Professor Aronson provides foundation and statistical methods for establishing that the signals are significant and NOT an expected consequence of searching large enough spaces.

The book is well referenced and Aronson has done a superb job making otherwise complex concepts accessible.

If you find yourself resisting and/or violating the principals of inference described in the book, consider that you may by fueling the inefficiencies that more sophisticated groups are likely to exploit.

There are some good ideas here but almost all of the back-tested systems are too curve-fitted using TDW (Trading Day of the Week -- e.g. never buy on a Thursday) and inter-market relationships (e.g. buy stocks only when bonds are going up).

I made my own system using only one of Williams' basic ideas, then parameterized it to use about 6 parms (e.g. stop value, distance from open, etc.) and back-tested it using about 15 years' data with all possible parm combinations.

With the best parm set this system gained about 100% per year, figuring percentage gains the way Williams does. It had rather low drawdown.

Then I modified it as follows. I selected the parm set that did the best for the first year, then used that parm set for the 2nd year and recorded those results. Then I ran all parm sets for the first 2 years, picked the best parm set and used it for the 3rd year. And so on.

These results then, are all from testing on out-of-sample data. Results over the same period (but only 14 years as year 1 results are not out-of-sample) were diminished by about half. But they are far more realistic than results obtained from 100% back-testing as Williams does.

I am writing this in the middle of June, 2008, using the best parm set as of the end of 2007. The system is up about 44% since the end of 2007, which is better than the long-term average.

I highly recommend this form of system development, which Williams does not use in this book. It takes a lot of work to do it right, but the results are worth it -- if you can stick to the rules you develop. Unfortunately, this will be even harder to do than developing the rules will be.

Good luck.

When I first encountered this book at the library I thought it was fantastic. It utilized methods of getting the odds on your side and used money management to make millions!
Well, once I tried his mostly badly explained techniques using Tradestation 2000i on S&P500 and Bond data from Norgate the results were not so flash. He also is a blatant lier. He mentions that each test in his book uses a $50 commission. Well they don't. Only very few of them do, as you can see from the System Writer printouts. As soon as you add commission, the hundreds of trades turn a super winning system into a dreadful loser.
Its a pity that this book doesn't deliver what it seems to but it is different and quite enjoyable to read; although you need to take notes as you go along!
I did learn one good thing. Find a system that offers you the edge, consistently, and use money management to make you rich.

I'm still going through the book (few weeks now) trying out some of his methods on different data, but the techniques don't hold up so well in real life.

i dont personalluy have anything for, nor anything against, larry and the countless other individuals and companies that produce an amazing amount of trading books, tools, programs, lectures and so forth. in fact, i myself wrote the book "beginners guide to computer assisted trading", which amazon sold for several years. the truth of the matter is.... those who cannot do, teach... meaning that around 90% of the stuff you are being offered is by people who were, in reality, not successful in, or never even actually did what they are claiming. just think logically, if YOU had a great way to beat the markets, would you waste time telling others how to do it? of course not! i personally stopped trading several years ago as i realized that technical analisys and simple to moderatly complex trading models no longer work. however, i do contract work for one of the worlds most successful private hedge funds and i can tell you that yes, if you have a big bankroll and at least 1/2 dozen rocket scientists you may find a way to beat the market for a while. but markets can always change (ususally quickly) in a way that can turn a good system into a dud. final food for thought, never mentioned in the financial press: the longer you stay in the markets, the higher your risk of ruin....

Many of the ideas in this book validated Larry Williams' previous market concepts in its totality thus proved that they do indeed have strong merits and he still has conviction in what he originally expounded on. The priciples surrounding concept known as 'Market structure' is basis for a lot of trading courses out there costing anywhere between a few hundred dollars to ten thousand dollars. Although I agree with Chuck Lebeau who stated in his book that Volatility Breakout system simply deteriorates going forward as new data enters into pictures, I strongly believe that with an individual trader's overall well-defined market context, it can prove to be an excellent entry strategy because it's based on sound market principles. This book is worthwhile for me, at least, to confirm my market belief. The cycle phenomenons occurring in range volatility and pattern shift in open and high are enough of valid reason to invest your time in this book. In the end, I picked up a few ideas worth adding to my trading repertoire.

I was happy and making money slowly and steadily until i read this book. after reading is my account dropped from +50% for the year to +22% so far. his statistics are way over fitted. i realized that once i tested his data. the thing that i never understood is that why do these people keep publishing books if they are making millions. i know the answer now. they are not making millions trading , they are making it selling the book. maybe you can figure a way to make money with his stuff, but i couldn't.

best of luck

I stumbled across bento-making late one night when the Cooking Cute website was featured on Yahoo's "The Nine." I made my husband a bento that night, and have been hooked ever since. I found this book and was so excited to find a guide to bento in English. I don't think I've cracked the book more than three times or so. It's just not practical for the Western palate - there are a lot of "strange" foods I haven't dug up the gumption to try. I am a bit more food-adventurous than my husband, who actually has to eat my creations. For the ones I have tried, thank goodness I live in a city with a large Asian community and many ethnic grocery stores to peruse. Some of the ingredients have been a little harder to track down than others. The directions also seem to skip a few steps sometimes, I don't know if this is because it's supposed to be "common sense" or lost in translation, but nothing you can't stumble through. All in all - a beautiful display of food. Eye-appealing if not so to my stomach. :D

This is well planned out. and it actually helps you plan out your boxes. Although the bento display is not as creative or cute as some would like it, the dishes themselves are fantastic. A great addition to your bento box cookbook collection.

Other recommended reads:

Easy Japanese Pickling in Five Minutes to One Day: 101 Full-Color Recipes for Authentic Tsukemono

Harumi's Japanese Cooking: More than 75 Authentic and Contemporary Recipes from Japan's Most PopularCooking Expert

Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking: Simple, Elegant Recipes for Contemporary Tastes

This little book is stuffed full of recipes that make good bento boxes. It is ,however, intended for a Japanese audience and assumes a certain level of familiarity with basic Japanese food preparation. Don't let that scare you off, though, this is a great book!

If you are not familiar with basic Japanese food and ingredients, i suggest you also buy "the Asian Grocery Store demystified" or "a dictionary of Japanese food" or some other basic guide to Japanese cooking to go with this book. Most of the ingredients listed can be found in any large Asian supermarket, or failing that can be substituted with items found in typical American Supermarkets, if you are willing to take a small amount of time to figure out what the ingredient is meant to be doing in the recipe. (is it for taste? texture?) Part of this will depend on where you live, of course, but here in Philadelphia i had no problem finding all the ingredients.

what this book offers is a LOAD of Japanese and Japanese style recipes that are meant to be packed for lunch or dinner. Many of them can be prepared ahead, and all of them are ideal candidates for the bento box or picnic lunch! Most other Japanese recipe books are full of wonderful foods, but with no guarantee that they will be able to survive packing and toting around.

jammed with recipes, its a bargain for anyone looking to make healthy meals on the go.

I like the concept of this book (small meals with a Japanese flavor that are made for taking and eating on the go). The recipes and ingredients are geared for those familiar with Japanese ingredients and cooking techniques AND who have easy access to a Japanese or Asian grocery store. I'm not familiar, and don't have easy access, so this book isn't very practical for me. Therefore, I decided to return it using Amazon's easy return policy. Instead, I'll search for a book that not only has great Japanese recipes but has ones that I'll actually be able to make!

This book is both an excellent introduction to bento lunches and a great inspiration for experienced cooks packing bentos for their loved ones. I have made nearly every recipe in this book and I have not been disappointed. Each recipe is made in a small quantity and most can be made in under 30 minutes, making this an excellent cookbook for small households (1-2 people). I have also increased the quantities to adapt the recipes for dinner. There are pictures to accompany each recipe, but for the beginner it might be worthwhile to pick up an additional guide to Japanese cooking. As with anything it might take some experimentation to adjust the recipes to your liking.

I've been running a bento blog for going on 2 years and found the best way to learn about bento is to search web for Japanese bento blogs. Type the word "bento" in hiragana or try photo sites. This book is an excellent accompaniment to that sort of research because it enables you to identify what many of the items are and provides you with a recipe.

My only complaint is the book should have been spiral bound and laminated. My copy is in pretty bad shape from being used so much.

Excellent book - fast shipping - excellent condition - will buy from you again. Thanks very much

this book is good for beginner but i think if it has more real life example that will be more easy to understand.Should have specific rather then histroy.helal for sydney australia

Learning to trade confidently & profitably was probably the most daunting endeavor I've ever taken up. As a former novice trader, I recall having the feeling that I was paralyzed by uncertainty and self-doubt about my trades. It seemed then that there was drastically more information than a person could take in. Everything I heard or read made me believe that it was so critical and important. Yet I never seemed to understand how I should use what I was learning. I was always a step behind the market, chasing the crowd and loosing money. The more I traded the more frustrated I became. I thought I'd never understand how to trade. I'd lost so much money and enthusiasm that I considered quitting trading and leaving it up to smarter people than myself. I was beaten and embarrassed.

That was all before I read this book. Toni showed me step by step what I needed to know in order to get a firm grasp of trading successfully and profitably. What made this book so special to me is that Toni has an easy style that describes everything in really plain language. She takes nothing for granted when she explains how to read charts and when to buy and sell. She rounds out every chapter with some words of wisdom that guide the novice and expert trader alike toward having the knowledge, attitude and confidence to succeed. It's akin to having a "market mentor" showing you the ropes in a very thoughtful and intuative way. She's a great teacher and what I've learned from her has been the foundation for all of the knowledge I've aquired since reading this book.

In short, this book helped me see the beauty and simplicity of trading for profit & I'll never give it up (I do it for a living).

Brian Berry [...]

I've read this book twice, [I read everything multiple times] good entree into various mkt-related topics, though certainly requires follow up via other books, methods, research. Being a golden Buddha, I love the centerpoints.

This book taught me a great deal in a short time. It was not only easy to read, but informative and encouraging. She explains concepts in a very straightforward manner plus and was very positive about trading in general. I would recommend this book to anybody just starting out and want to learn more about trading stocks using technical analysis.

I found that this book was great for somebody getting into Forex Trading from day trading with equities. However, I would not suggest this book for beginners. I loved the history of Forex, and the book was great in terms of advice although she does often use terminology with no explanation of what it is e.g. nonfarm payrolls. If you want a book that moves slowly, this is also not a good choice. Do read this book with a good forex dictionary or access to the internet as you will need to look stuff up. Overall I liked this book alot as it was my first Forex book but I have read tons of books on stock and options trading. Best part is, that with the bear market now Forex trading is a much better option.

great book i used it always when i first entered forex, and still do. lots of knowledge and wisdow. not to mention it teachs you some stratagies.lots of books say they show you stratagies, but few deliver. this is one of them that does. this book was recommended to me as intermediate but i think it is a must have beginners guide, worth 4 of my beginners guide books.

Kathy Lien has written one of the most important "must have" books for active forex traders with "Day Trading the Currency Market".

Packed with practical insights and solid trading setups, she's written a superb book that's packed with useful trading how-tos, from one of the most respected forex authorities found.

Specifically, I found her correlation tables and volatility indices very valuable, as well as her step by step explanations of how to look for both fundamental as well as technical market-moving patterns. I'm recommending her book to all my Forex traders on my forexonfire dot com site, as excellent resources to own.

Additonally, she's provided superb explanations of how the mechanics of currency trading works, and the impact of various market opens, when and how to trade various technical chart patterns, and much more.

This book, along with Boris Schlossberg's excellent "Technical Analysis of the Currency Market", are the two best forex books on the market and are highly recommended.


Good trading,

Ken Calhoun
ForexOnFire

In my search for good FX trading books, I found no good book yet, and this book is no exception. This book is poorly written, has no consistent flow, and it does not lead the reader anywhere. Just few areas I found somewhat interesting like correlation between pairs, and volatility as a function of time of the day, and that is why I gave it a rating of 2. Otherwise, 1 will be enough. Someday someone may write a good FX trading book that really respects the intelligence of the reader. Not all FX retail traders are losers!

I just finished reading this book and after reading more than a dozen of books on forex and day trading I must say the book is a waste of money. Most of the topics in the book are covered superficially and the few trading strategies presented are poorly documented and contain errors.

Sure, I would love to beat the market all the time....NOT POSSIBLE....maybe a little? Don't expect to read one book and be an expert. This requires many books{ maybe 30-40] + years of experience [read lots of mistakes]. I would give the book a higher rating but I don't think day trading is EASY at all...the title is very misleading. If you've taken your lumps in this bear market of 2000-2001, you know what I mean. If you're a bear, well finally you're time has come. I've been waiting for this bear since 1992! Good luck!

This book is pretty basic and as a beginner you are going to have to learn more focused trading strategies and not just a generalistic overview of what day trading is or should be.

Day trading is all about making buy and sell decisions. When you make a trade either your going to lose money or your going to make money, and some other times you will break even. When you win some body else will lose and so forth, but that's NOT what's important.

The most important aspect of day trading is the knowledge FILTER you employ to make your buy and selling decisions. There are many "fantastic" trading strategies outhere, but you need to test them in order to discover which ones help you the most. That's part of your homework as a daytrader. Test, test and test again.

Complicated strategies that rely on a "boat load" of technical indicators can make you slow, and being slow in this game can be as dangerous as not knowing what to do in the first place.

I think the worst thing that can happen to a beginner trader is to get information overload. It's better to go step by step, and test a simple strategy that can show you how to focus on concrete ways to make money.

Fortunatly there are some good sites on the web today that can show you how to trade in a practical and effective way. One of those sites is Stress Free Traders ( StressFreeTraders com)

In the end, day trading is all about buying and selling according to your knowledge FILTER. Once you master and follow youre proven filter parameters like a clock, you can expect to start making serious amounts of cash on a consistent basis.

Having as much experience in trading, I along with thousands of others could have written this book. It's cliche and dated. I am actually quite surprised since this guy has never really day-traded. After getting this book, the one thing Sarkovich taught me is how to write a book about something one does not know anything about. I actually cannot believe all the Stars people give!! Are you all high?!? Its mind boggling? Are you guys for real?... Actually, $3 prices in the used section should tell you something?... For anyone interested in technical analysis, get Murphy's technical analysis of Stocks and commodities or Reminiscence of a stock market operator by Jesse Livermore. Get a Van Tharp book for money management and be patient. Day-trading is tough, and most people can handle other types of trading but not day-trading. And really the only way to learn is to find a mentor like Pristine, a close friend or some trading shop. I wonder if there are a lot of shops around anymore. Misha's is not, not that he would ever trade there, since he is not a trader. ;-)

OK, if you want to read something that gives outline view of what Day Trading is about, go ahead and buy this book. If your looking to build a foundation for a successful career in trading, move on. Not only is this book a warmed up re-hash of material covered in dozens of other books, the information is really dated. I suppose that if we could roll the clock back to 1999, you could read this book, start trading and you'd probably feel pretty talented. But in reality, all you needed to know in 1999 was 3 or 4 steps.
1) Pick a stock,
2) Buy the stock
3) Sell it after it goes up.
4) Repeat steps 1 through 3.

This book is ok if you are a new INVESTOR who wants to use Electronic Trading to buy stocks. If you are planning on being an active trader, or a day trader, skip this book. It is just basic order entry, system and level II quote information.

As for the Made Easy part, investing and trading are not easy. If they could be made easy no one would sell you a book.

Steven Achelis does a pretty decent job of showing what the stock market really is: just a big jumble of numbers completely determined by human emotion. And because pretty much anything involving human emotion is cyclical, it also becomes somewhat predictable.

This book presents an excellent selection of technical indicators that do a number of different things. It also presents formulas for most of the indicators.

... but also a well written understanding of the mathematical models that make them work. If you trade with indicators, you need this book along with "Pring".

If you are looking for a technical tool reference book for your investing/trading library this is the one. This book covers (in alphabetical order) every trading tool I am aware of including the O' Neal CAN SLIM method, trend lines, volume, stochastics, Williams %R, every kind of moving average, candlestick charting, decline/advance, oscillators and just about everything else you will run across in trading stocks. The author gives an overview of the indicator, the interpretation, an example, then shows how to calculate it with the mathematical formulas used and a table for reference. I read this book from cover to cover and learned a great deal. I believe it is a must have for beginners if you are serious about using technical tools to time your trades correctly at proper buy points.

As the title says, this covers technical analysis (the analysis of securities based on price patterns) from A to Z, that is to say all the various approaches are covered alphabetically. Everything is covered but not in extensive detail. Each approach is covered in terms of an overview of the approach, an interpretation of the approach, and an example (generally with suitable graphs). No attempt is made to inject the author's preferences or any statistical analysis of the effectiveness of the approach. As such, this is more of a dictionary than a book on investment advice. This is not to say that dictionaries are useless, they are very useful, but they are not the same as a book on how to write. This book will tell you what the particular system is, not whether it is any good. Also, there are many variations of most of the systems and many different values for the parameters used by the systems, so other references will be required if you actually want to apply any of these approaches. The reader should be forewarned, however, that Technical Analysis is only one approach to the market. Many believe that this approach is little more than tealeaf reading and they rely on the analysis of the fundamentals of the balance sheet of the company and its prospects for future growth.

Extremely pleased with the purchase and reading experience. The book covers everything I know about and much more that I didn't. I was able to make oscillators, from the explanations given, on excel and was able to make the charts. The Chande Momentum Oscillator is an added, and needed, tool for my analysis for investment. I bought this book because it was the one called out in the Yahoo charts trying to explain the Stoch Oscillator; which, I wanted to understand, and now do.

I was very interested in Bill Williams's trading method, because I have used Metatrader4 to treat currency pairs. MT4's technical analyses have Bill Williams's alligator and AO and AC and others in default setting. I read this book and try to do exactly and realized that it is difficult to make profit in flat and corrective triangle waves. To avoid this waste of money, you must understand Elliot wave principle or keep eyes on the chart. But once a trend start, this method makes profit certainly. Totally make a little profit unless lost compensation at all in flat double and triple three.

If moving average oscillator is part of your trading plan, this book will help tremendously. This book has very specific strategies and tactics concerning moving average oscillator usage. Although they are not meant to be mechanized, they are systematic enough to be used in very structured way.

1. Everything in the Universe follows the path of least resistance

2. An always underlying and usually unseen structure determines the path of least resistance.

3. The always underlying and usually unseen structure can be discovered, and it can be altered.

4. The four largest money gatherers and distributors in the world are: war, medicine, insurance, and religion.

5. Traders who let the new incoming information organize their trading will be in sync with the market and thereby will be winners.

6. "The market is infinitely complex. Freedom and free will-strange attractors-prevail over rules and determinacy.

7. Fractals are the way markets organize themselves.

8. Everything that exists is drawn out of this quantum soup by attractors. All outer phenomena are governed by four attractors: point attractor, cycle attractor, torus attractor, and strange attractor. Point attractor lives in the dimension of a line, which is made up of infinite number of points. Whenever, a point attractor is governing, a person is drawn to one particular activity, or repelled from another. The cycle attractor is back and forth movement, like a pendulum or circling magnet. It is characterized of a range bound or bracketed market where the price moves up and down in a range over a period of time. One activity automatically leads into another activity. In grain markets, one year of high prices produces more plantings in the next spring, which produces lower prices. The cycle attractor produces a structural tension between the two poles and opens the way for integration between the two opposites. The torus attractor begins a complex cycle that repeats itself as it moves forward. If the bond interest goes up, it attracts mre investors. Bond prices go up, which lowers the interest rate and makes bonds less attractive, and so on. Third dimension, predictions are more precise, higher degree of irregularity, patterns more complex, and repeating function. Strange attractor becomes self-organizing. One characteristic of strange attractor is its sensitivity to initial conditions. The slightest variation in the beginning can make enormous differences in the end result. The strange attractor allows us to participate in the ebb and flow of the market and of life.

9. Bill Williams trade approach involves five perspectives: 1. Momentum 2. Change in the speed of current momentum 3. Appearance of initiating fractal 4. zonal influences 5. balance-line differentials.

10. To win consistently in the markets you must get to know them and how they process incoming information. Get in tune with the market and change your belief about the market and the world.

11. One of the keys to profitable trading is to take only those trades with the most potential and stay out of situations where there is marginal potential.

12. Most of the time the market goes nowhere and about 15 to 30 percent of the time does the market trend. We don't want to waste time entering and existing the market without profiting, if the market is going nowhere then opportunity is going nowhere.

13. Alligator is blue line (13 bar moving average), red line (8 bar moving average offset 5 bars into the future), and green line (5 bars moving average 3 bars into the future). Blue is the jaw, red line is the teeth, green is the lips the balance line. When all three lines are intertwined the alligator is sleeping, range bound market. We don't want to loss money during a range bound. All five highs or lows should be on the same side of the blue balance line. The stop to exit is just inside the red line (teeth).

I've read all three books by Bill Williams and I think this is his best work.

I'm not sure if I agree with every trading tool that he presents, but, like any new information: you apply them to your own objectives. However, make no mistake...his ideas are important and he's done extremely well to lay them out in a readable manner.

This is just my own opinion, but I feel that you can't dismiss other aspects of technical analysis. Combining a few important technical rules with non-linear trading techniques will produce excellent results as long as you apply them correctly. Further, I've read many books on linear mechanical trading models and usually they don't describe ideas that lend themselves to you as a trader adapting efficiently to changing market conditions.

Put simply, if you read between the lines, he suggests a way of thinking that is non-linear and constantly changing: the crux of the markets.

It's not the trading methodology that makes this book valuable. Whenever I reread it I completely skip that part. As a matter of fact, in his next book "Trading Chaos Second Edition" Bill pretty much admits the system underperforms in current market conditions and makes the very significant refinement of using a counter-trend signal that he refers to as a "divergent bar" for first entry. He says without saying it in that book that those following the method in this book will be "late and have a difficult time making any money."

No, the reason I have held on to this book, instead of selling it with the others, is the psychological stuff, and the innovated way he ties physics in with successful trading. It is very introspective, thought-provoking, and yes, quite helpful. To quote the book, get out of the win vs. loss mindset and get into the here and now process of noticing what is happening and being in tune with the market.

[...]

Note: as it stands, my review barely scratches the surface of this noteworthy book. I intend to return to here, and delve much deeper, at some point down the road. (Had we but world enough and time...)

My attitude towards trading books is this: if I come away with at least one good idea or useful insight, the cost of purchase is paid for a hundred times over. Ken Grant's book contains a handful of useful ideas for improving performance, and some interesting perspectives to boot. When someone has worked with the best of the best (Jones, Cohen, et. al) their views carry weight. Ideas aside, I found Grant's overall philosophy of risk to be worth the price of admission.

While the subject matter doesn't delve especially deep, this isn't a book for beginners. To fully appreciate the observations, a little seasoning is required. Grant speaks to those with a well developed respect for the markets, typically earned by grinding it out, experiencing the inevitable ups and downs over time, and taking a good hard knock or two. If you are a beginning trader still in the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed phase (having not yet received your first frying pan to the face), this book may bore you. If you are a crusader in search of the holy grail, or a techno-junkie hooked on chart patterns and oscillators, the lack of packaged advice may frustrate. But... if you have been around the block, seen the ups and downs, and love the game enough to make excellence and longevity your true ideals, then this book might be for you.

Another great thing about Trading Risk is the way new light gets shed on `dull' concepts. These are important ideas that routinely get the short shrift. Sure, you may know all about standard deviations and portfolio adjustment; but can you see the forest for the trees? Maybe yes, maybe no... but for those who say `nothing new here,' I question how hard they actually looked. Risk Management as an Investment--one of the book's key themes--is a rich concept with multiple layers, and well worth delving into.

I suppose if I had read this when I started to trade 14 years ago, it would have helped me. If you've traded for more than four years, you should already know most of the things covered in this book or you are an ex-trader. The book is mostly targetted towards money managers which is somewhat different from what I do which is proprietary trading in fixed income. The book will help you understand to risk less when you are down and risk more when you are up. Nothing earth shattering. I personally liked "Fortune's Formula" a lot better although the subject matter differs. Overall a good solid book for a novice trader.

Perhaps some reviewers might disagree but to me this is just an intermediate to advanced level trading book that focuses primarily on risk management with decent coverage of systematic risk management strategies or tools (say, correlation analysis on P/L vs holding period, VAR, number of positions, exposure level etc etc) plus many vividly written stories of traders anonymous that help traders of all levels to sharpen their edge.

To those traders who are willing to go and work the extra mile for better defense in the trading battlefield, it can really help, for sure. In other words, those who are already preparing their own daily trading journals or have somebody else to complete the job will definitely benefit from the advice of this book. However, if you wont bother to do even the minimal daily book keeping job, not to say those relatively complicated analysis made easy by software readily available in the market, please give this book a pass.

If you are looking for a book whith detailed risk management techniques this is not your book. This book is oriented to money managers that are currently aplying risk control and want to read some stories about that. There is no practical information that allows the reader to implement a real risk control mechanism. Just ideas like "keep your volatility below 10% of your trading capital" or "make a correlation analysis of your P/L with everything to see if you find something". Too much stuff to say "be prudent"

If you want to understand the mathematics of money management, risk control and position sizing you'd better read RALPH VINCE. I suspect that those that are publicy dissapointed with optimal f do not understand the issue very well. In "the new money management" by Vince you have a clear procedure to obtain the maximum profit from your money with the risk level you are comfortable with. (dynamic fractional f).

If you (like me) are looking for new ways to get the best for your money, with examples and practical demostration of the statements so you understand every single line do not buy this book. I does not provide that.

I think this book covers the topic of risk adequately. I got it last year and finally got around to reading it this week. If I had to buy it today I would probably pass, at $55 its twice what I paid for it in November. Someone must really like it?

I read this book to further refine my risk strategies. What I found was a book that explained risk in detail, but did not seem to offer me much in the way of finetuning my system. Although it did give me more confidence in my system and confirmed to myself that I am on the right road.

I liked the story of one risk manager from the book. This person had pages and pages of complex mathematical formulas to arrive at his funds risk levels. But if you turned over the page it said "equals five percent". LOL. So my 5% risk strategy has been correct all this time and I didn't have to use a Cray supercomputer to arrive at that number!

If you are new to risk assesment or need to figure out complex hedging risk strategies this is a good book. If you have a pretty good understanding of risk already, you may want to pass on this book.

Ari Kiev's book Trading to Win might seem like just psycho-babble to some traders. That is odd, given that some of these same critics are devout followers of technical analysis, which premises that psychology factors firmly into market movements. Why then is it such heresy to believe that you can improve the performance of a trader by working on his psychology?

It is not a strange concept to Steve Cohen, who hired Ari Kiev as a "trading coach" for his hedge fund S.A.C. Kiev, who was profiled in Jack Schwager's Stock Market Wizards , teaches that traders need to stretch themselves in the goals they set. They also need to eliminate the negative thinking that prevents them from reaching those goals. Much of Trading to Win is thus actually "common sense" (as is most psychology, it seems), but sometimes it is useful to hear someone reiterate sound principles.

One principle for which critics have taken Kiev to task is his suggestion that traders should set or raise their profit goals, which seems like a veritable "no no" from a risk management perspective. The criticism misses the fact, however, that Kiev is really saying that raising your performance goals means raising your work ethic. What are you going to do to raise your game? Squeezing out extra percentage points of return requires getting onto the trading floor hours earlier (or hours later) than you normally would-and researching companies more assiduously on paper or by working the phones harder. Moreover, Kiev actually recommends stricter risk management through such time-tested techniques as understanding your reasons for each trade, as well as the setting of target entry and exit prices. He also wants you to figure out if fears and doubts are keeping you from cutting your losses and riding your winners.

This book is clearly not for everyone; it is easily too "touchy feely" for traders concerned solely with the quantitative or more tangible aspects of trading. Kiev also tends to float heavily from topic to topic, often without a clear path. But for those traders who wonder how "fixing their heads" might result in greater success, Trading to Win is definitely worth a read.

I am a professional day and swing trader. I didn't find this book to be particularly helpful because of the disorganized way in which it was written. Also it offers so many rules and guidelines that it is confusing to one as to which is more importnant. The author also tries to impress one with the profit size of his "students", throwing around figures like $20,000 to $30,000 in profits a day that his students or clients generate. I agree with another reviewer that these for the most part is meaningless as one needs to figure return on assets to really judge how well one is doing. I have read a much better book on trading psychology and this one really analyses why we make the mistakes so common in trading. Getting to the root of the problem has helped me to improve my trading. I am now in my third year in this business and hope to be in it for a lifetime.

This and his other book, Trading in the Zone, are a complete waste of time. Instead, read the books by Mark Douglas (he is not even trained as a psychologist) and Richard McCall if you really want something that will change your mental makeup towards trading.

The Trading profession is a tough one because there is not 1 school that teaches it per say. So being only about 300 to 400 good books on trading. You need to get a bit from each and discard the rest.

There are a few but very valuable pieces of information that can be applied in this book. Just because 80% of the content of a book does not apply to you does not make it bad , you have to be objective and open in your assessments.

If you are a trader and want to be a Master Trader then this book is really for you.

I personally only trade futures at the moment so all of the Stock examples did not really apply to me.
But that does not make the book bad, there are little gems in there you will seem them sparsely around the book specially in Part 1 and Chapter 12

Chapter 12 is worth the price of the whole book on its own !!

At the beginning of the book there is some really good content on behaviour modification for traders the chapters at the start of the book are worth the price of the book in it self.

No book is ever the perfect book for you unless you wrote it yourself. You need to get bits and pieces from here and there and make your own.

If you like Mark Douglas's "Trading in the Zone" then you will love this book.

This is an absolutely excellent book, but all of the goods are in 20% of the text.

This book is about developing the right attitude and relaxing. It can be applied to almost any risk taking endeavor or competative profession.

The parts that profess to teach about trading per se are not useful. This book will not teach anybody anything about buying or selling financial products.

It repeats a lot of the same stuff over but the real message is to chill out and get serious about performance. Be a winner, examine your losers and why you went wrong and vow to change for the better. Again, have the right attitude and approach and learn to control stress with breathing exercises and muscle relaxation. To be a good trader, one must learn to endure stress and not react to it just to releive it but focus on the trade and do what is right based only on the objective analysis. This is hard to do because it is pleasurable to close out a trade and avoid the stress of being in it.

The book is useful in order to help one focus and work through stress. I imagine there are a number of self-help books that are similar in this regard. Nothing special.