Just a quick question that may have been asked in the past so apologise if this is the case. I am an ultra newbie novice. Been learning the ropes for about 4 months now and thoroughly enjoying the learning experience with ForEx trading, but no where near trading for real yet, so still on the practice account.
Firstly I’m very pleased to have found this site, and have to say thanks for the awesome site that these guys behind baby pips have put together. Can’t rate it highly enough.
My question is, I’m going away and will have a week to myself to read lots. I was wondering if there are any recommendations for hard copies of reading material that I can take with me and study. Looking at an iPad in the sun is horrible.
If you know any, let us know.
Thanks in advance.
P.S - I have had a look around at the other posts, but some of them are 4 years out of date, and the books suggested some were written nearly 10 years ago, so does this matter or is there something more recent out there now.
How are you at chart reading , lots of good books on the subject and they do not go out of date. Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques by Steve Nison would be a good one
You already learned 4 month for tradings so i’m not sure what you are looking right now. but i assume you already know most of the basic such as fibonnaci, trend line, pattern. if you looking more knowledge to analyze chart. i reccomend you to read Elliot wave theory and Volume spread analysis. combining both will give you how the trading chart works. this is not only limited to forex. but you can use this theory in daily business. because both theory represent human behavior for demand and supply.
But again, reading the theory will not give you the power to trade directly. you must used the theory and your basic knowledge and keep practicing until you get used to the chart.
How long? it depend on each person.
Please avoid books if you want to learn to trade.
I have been reading a zillion of books about trading and none of them really let you understand how to trade and how to create your own strategy. They are good if you want to understand how the market works but then again you can find all you need online for free. And also you have to choose what you will be willing to trade. You don’t trade stocks the same way you trade Forex for instance.
Avoid using-ready-to use strategies out there. On the other hand focus on understanding how they work and isolate their behaviors. Try to build your own strategy based on the behaviors you like.
[B]I suggest that you check those videos I have made myself. They are optimised for mobile devices.
This is a summary of my experience and market understanding but it’s a very interactive and nice way to get into it, in my own humble opinion.[/B]
As for me, I wouldn’t recommend Elliot Wave theory. Too much room for interpretation. Elliot Wave is good for describing the market not to make predictions.
Volume is great for stock but has no intrinsic value for Forex.
The reason why is because Forex is about pairs and not a single equity. Comparing pairs volumes is like comparing the volume of apples and houses being sold.
It is however very valuable in stocks so it really depends of what you are trading.
And again if you want to see something in the markets you will see it, but it does not mean that it is effective.
The best instrument I think one should master is Support and Resistance logic.
Thank you. Yes I am totally aware and comfortable with the fact that reading theory won’t necessarily work in the real world, I just want to absorb information. I have learnt the basics of chart reading and technicals (not all obviously).
Thanks for that. I’ve sort of worked out that no 2 stratagies are the same and what works for 1 person won’t for another so practice in the real world (or demo account world in my case) is probablly the best way to figure out what works. Its more about like you said how things work, why certain things might happen. I usually read everything online, but I just wanted something physical to read on holiday! Have you tried reading an iPad on a sun lounger!! Its horrible!
I will check out the videos. Im also half way through the PIP School as I said in the opening comment its absolutely brilliant and full marks to the guys behind it.
Again, thank you for your advice. Duly noted. Its ForEx I’m learning and interested in. Maybe when I have confidence in that I would look at other markets but not for a long time. Its general information books I’m after so titles of good ones would be lovely. There’s a lot of books out there, so Im sure there’s a few that are good and a few that would be good as fuel for the fire!
Personally, I would go for books even older than that.
Not only have they stood the test of time (if they’re still being reprinted and/or having new editions brought out), but also the standard of trading-book publications, and their pre-publication peer-review, was much higher in those days. In these days of self-publishing, anyone can get anything into print without there really being any “quality control” at all.
The books that were most helpful to me, the ones I learned most from, and the ones I’m still recommending, were all “on the old side” when I read them, and are even more so, now.
For understanding “what a trading system is and how to develop one” I recommend [I]Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom[/I] by Van K. Tharp (I can’t stand his later books, though), and [I]Beyond Technical Analysis [/I]by Tushar S. Chande. And for understanding trade management clearly (without which it’s close-to-impossible to make steady income, really, unless you’re a professional statistician to start with) I recommend Michael Harris’s [I]Profitability and Systematic Trading[/I] (2007, Wiley).
For learning “how markets work” and “how to read charts” and the basics of price action, I would go all the way back to the timeless masterpieces of the books by Joe Ross (all still available): they seem somehow to become even more relevant and more helpful as the years go by.
you cant even immagine how much i agree to your statement there.
onlin education is a complete waist of time. no quality, unstrutctured gibberish, gives pieces here and there but not from a to z rather from y-z then u find something that give g-k and then you find something that gives c -d etc etc.
you only end up confuzed and with a lot of wiasted time. another factor the online education is not providing is the explanations of logic behind things. it only tells you when “this” happens “that” this should happen without explaining the reasons behind it and the driving forces. etc. etc.
in quality books you not only have deep explanations of things but a structured way of going with you through the stuff from the basic to the hard stuff. you cant learn about something that builds up on another theory/practice without knowing that preactice/theory before you start to learn the buildup on it.
if you want to learn chart technique then theres one book ki recoment as one of the best books published ever (1970ies) its called: John J Murphy - Technical Analysis Of The Financial Markets
heres a link, have fun reading it the next 10 days
Thanks Lexys & Turbo, yes I guess when you think about it if the books published 20 years ago are still relevant now then they must be good. My reading list is growing at least. I just wanted to make sure some of the older stuff was still relevant now, and it is so thats fine…Thanks everyone for your help.
The other ones I saw mentioned were:
How to make a living trading foreign exchange by courtney d smith
You beet me In mentioning these books. I can confirm that “Trading your way to financial freedom” is a good book about developing a trading system. Also mentioned by Lexys who made me read it in the first place.
Do you know if I can download a copy of Trading beyond the matrix somewhere?
Lexys what is your opinion about this book from Tharp? You seem to have a different opinion?
It’s nice that you have got different advices from different people.
I just want to point something about books. Even though you will read the entire litterature related to trading it does not guarantee that you will make money on the market. In fact you don’t even have better odds with a financial education in university. Have talked to students in economics, they still think that the only real way is to act like Warren Buffet.
As for me, [B]nothing beats real experience[/B], spending infinite hours staring at screens, playing at the game of making hypothesis and verifying them with trial error. And trying it on demo then on real account. Nothing.
As for internet I disagree with what TURBONero said, in fact the best counter example of this is Baby Pips and School of Pipsology. It is funny how ironic it is, you got all those nice advices thanks to internet so you have been [I]educated online[/I].
remind urself of this post in 3 years please dont forget it.
5 or 6 yrs ago i did babypips school. burned a dozen of accounts. stopped. threw all out i thought i learned. got myself some good old fashioned books= didnt burn accounts anymore. got more books= earned money. git even more books= learned that they are all saying the same with slight variations= made more money.
i have a master im economics and i can tell you that people with economical background (if you like to hear it or not) definately have an advantage in trading.
turtle is more a trading strategy then a book of how to trade. they give you a clear strategy with entree and exit points and very strict rules regarding behsviour when to buy and when not and when and how to scale in. it is a strategy based on math purely and it is good when followed without aby emotions at all. it is a strategy designed for lastingvtrades which go over months and signals sre designed that way that you get onky like half a dozen signals a year.
the strategy/trading plan itself is good and proven to be sucessfull but i doubt youll learn much by reading the book about it.
I haven’t read it. (I’ve looked through it for 10 minutes). It’s a psychology book, so of no relevance or interest to me. Personal perspective only: I recognise that such things may be helpful to others, but I have some degree of Asperger’s syndrome, myself, and don’t use them. :8:
Well I’m glad it worked out for you with the books. It didn’t work out for me so I am sharing my point of view nothing more
Concerning students in finance please show me a statistic saying that they perform better in markets.
Even the most intelligent people with a phd can’t get it right. Why? Because it’s about emotions not about books. Emotions and self control and you learn it in life not in books. You know? Life has to be felt, has to be lived and experienced…not read in books.
And sorry to say but probably you went too soon on the markets, didn’t have a proper trading plan or had a poor execution. And very often haven’t backtested/forward tested your strategy.
You can’t really know. But I know from experience after I have taught two persons how to trade that once you don’t fully realize by yourself that you need to work this out…either your emotions or your trading plan you will lose.
And I must say that [B]losing is good[/B], [B]losing teaches you[/B]. The two persons I have tried to teach to acted like self proclamed a-holes because they have had luck in the beginning and didn’t want to listen to my advices with money management and strategy. I had the feeling that what I did say just went through their ears…until they lost money, then they began to listen closely.
So sorry but I disagree on this. Books are good but they don’t teach you how to trade the same as they don’t teach you how to approach a girl or how to be happy. You have to figure it out by your own way.
This is why I am against using pre-built strategies, especially when they use indicators, but rather I want people to focus on underlying concepts and use those concepts to build their own personalized strategies.
Also I have a master in law and computer science. Law didn’t teach me how to be a good lawyer or have a great speech, computer science didn’t teach me how to build a good career programming…heck they didn’t even teach the basic stuff needed for today’s positions. It was all about math and academic stuff.
Same goes for finance stuff. They don’t teach you how to be successful on the markets. If they did they the 95% would be a myth and professionnal traders wouldn’t struggle so much. Uni gives you a broad academic vision and knowledge.
And like in the movie Good Will Hunting you can get this knowledge for 5 dollars in a book because back then they didn’t have the internet of things we have today YouTube
“what advices did i get from internet?”
Well I was speaking about dynamix… You were saying that you can’t get anything valuable on the net and yet look at your comment. It is very valuable and it’s on the net. So dynamix definitely learned something thanks to you or me [B]and[/B] the internet. So the internet argument worked
to the rest i dont see any need to comment. youre completely right about finance students, just last time i was at a gas station i saw a manager from J.P. Morgan telling the cashier to take a job at JPMorgan as analyst. how could i forget that jeezzz (Sarcasm)
Yes i am good example of valuableinformation on the internet, you on the other hand gave a perfect example of why you cant learn anything from internet. onto everyone who gives valuable information (in this case= read books and good books) there comes a dozen people trying to argue against what is beeing said (in this case you) an therefore leave the asking person in uncertaintiy who to listen to.
I mean, in this thread, you really suggest people to NOT read books. dont you see anything false in this? especially that the author asked advice on what books he [U]can read[/U] and [I]not if he should or should not read books at all[/I]
so your intrusive need to express your thoughts onto someone who was asking an entirely different question is a great example why you truly cant learn stuff from the internet anymore.
In the 1990 internet used to be great, lots of stuff to find a lots of academic articles, back then when you entered “forum” in the yahoo search bar you actually got results that show you which forums are the most searched one, which ones are the biggest ones, which ones are the most valued etc. now you tipe “forum” into a google search bar you will find a million extrovertive people arguind over the use of forums
