Hello. I’m a newbie to forex and was wondering in addition to the school of pipsology what are some of the best books to learn the basics
I am skeptical about the usefulness of reading books on forex. The school of pipsology gives you the basic knowledge. I think the best step would be to open a charting software, add some indicators and scroll back in time and see what would have worked. You will then gradually build your own personnal strategy. It takes time and be ready to spend hours and hours scrolling back in time.
Then, when you have a trading plan that seems to work, then try it on a demo account. and then, if you are satisfied with the result, try a live account with a small amount in real $ (say $100). Then if you are still happy with the result, you can invest more.
I personnally use FXCM. I like FXCM trading station. Might be a matter of taste but I find the FXCM charts pleasant to the eye. Since you will be spending hours and hours staring at the chart, it’s important to have a layout that pleases the eye. Also, FXCM has a no negative balance guarantee that ensures that you can’t loose more than your deposit. this is very important in my opinion.
This is my first time i visit here. I found so many entertaining stuff in your blog, especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the leisure here! Keep up the good work.
Hallo Jasism,
Just 1 book I’d recommend, that highlights an oft forgotten truth: that the key to success in trading is not so much our technical trading skills as it is our mental attitude. => Mark Douglas, “Trading in the Zone”
Cheers
The school offers the basics, and in my opinion more basics than you actually need. So you don’t need books for that. When you like to read more, look for books on traders psychology and trading systems, but even that can be found here. The book from Alexander Elder is mentioned often. I think it is called, welcome in my tradersroom. Or something similar.
It all depends if you’re new to trading in general or new to the FX market in particular.
If you’re new to trading I’d suggest giving Van Tharpe’s book a read, Trading Your Way to Financial Freedom, which gives advice on how to approach developing your trading methodology. His shorter and newer Supertrader is perhaps a more concise way to go. I also highly recommend any of Bret Steenbarger’s books, which professional prop traders read. He has a blog with lots of free articles so that’s a good place to start. Steenbarger is in my view a bit better than Tharpe, but Tharpe lays things out a bit better in places (even though he tries to sell you his $50,000 seminars, lol).
As far as FX specific books, the best FX book I’ve ever read to date is Currency Trading For Dummies by Brian Dolan. The second edition is improved in my view, though the first will also do just fine. It’s inexpensive and considerably better than all the $70 nonsense out there. Kathy Lien’s Day and Swing Trading the Currency Market is also good, though more expensive. If you want to get into fundamentals start following her and Boris Schlossberg, they’re the most fundamental oriented FX people out there. Boris has lots of ideas on trading he posts in his Youtube videos (BK Trading) for free. Just don’t get suckered into joining their trading service, totally unnecessary.
You MUST read one of the Market Wizards books. Doesn’t matter which one, but every trader has to read at least one of them.
As for technical analysis you really don’t need any books, everything you need to know is available on this site and elsewhere online. Also, check your local library, chances are they’ll have some of these books or they can get a book for you via inter-library loan for free. Saves you a fortune.
In general books are okay, but don’t lean too much on any one book. Read a bunch of them to feed you with ideas, and then go out and do your own thing. Don’t get caught up in guru-isms.
I would recommend “The 10 Essentials of Forex Trading” written by Jared F. Martinez.
I am currently reading the Al Brooks price action bar by bar trends book, I will have to let you know if it has a +ev effect on my trading but I’m certainly enjoying it a lot.
There is a nifty function @ BP. It is called a search function. When you type ‘Books’ and press enter, a number of threads pop up that you can go through them. It is quicker than waiting till people replied with their readinglists.
Al Brooks is pretty tough to read, I sorta gave up and found it more useful to watch his youtube videos which do a better job at getting his thinking across in a concise way.
A somewhat similar but much better written book is Bob Volman’s Forex Price Action Scalping, which is pretty new. The only thing is that Bob focuses on the 70 tick (roughly 30 second) chart, and believes in 1 pip charts (in other words, no pippettes). That means you have to subscribe to a data service like ProRealTime which leaves you $50 poorer every month. But that doesn’t matter because you can still get very valid trading ideas from it.
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There’s also this nifty little function @google, it’s called the search function
Everyone stop posting now! Babypips mods can you shut the forum down?
It’s all out there already, wish someone had pointed this out before.
Were you reading the old book or the three new ones that are essentially the old book made more reader friendly and split into three parts?
Thanks, I’ll check the vids.
I was reading the original ‘Bar by Bar’ book. The problem is that Brook’s method is very discretionary and as a result it takes a lot of skill to get it across. To me, Volman does a way better job of describing his way of looking at the market (which is also discretionary), integrating psychology and technique together very effectively.
I heard that Brook’s three book set is even more confusing to some, but this is just going off of Amazon reviews. Besides, they’re not cheap either.
So far I’m finding the first of the three a lot simpler but this might be due to it re-capping a lot of the previous material.
Your right, they aren’t cheap, price is a lot better on one of the famous video selling sites than most placed (at least for the UK) but still not great.
Thanks, I’ll definitley check out Volman.