Foreign-currency Books

As an IT professional who needed to master many facets of foreign exchange rather quickly, I found this book to be helpful in gaining an ear for the terminology and basic concepts, as well as basic jargon of traders. This book might be best used as a companion to a course on the same subject, as it might give you an alternate explanation of the same subjects.

The book will certainly not help you to Master the FX & Currency Options : It is just a collection of articles by various people - it offers not many insights and does not help you to understand the nitty gritties : in fact I felt that a novice like me could also collect information from a number of sources and cook it up into a book of my own. In short a waste of money and time... sorry to have to say this !

There are better books out there to spend your money on. The copy I have was printed in 1993 and a lot of things have changed since this first edition.

It is useless for individual traders.

You would be better off to buy John Murphy's books; Mark Douglas' books and John L. Person's book.

Just my humble opinion.

Good book for a feel on cross-rates. Unfortunately written before the advent of the EURO, therefore partially osolete nowadays.

I was looking for a basic book teaching the concepts and trading practices and fundamentals. This book has a lot to say about none of the topics needed to help someone become a trader. If you are looking to have someone trade your account you might be helped by it. There are a lot better books out there "Getting Started in Currency Trading" is a fine example. This is the best buy for the money when you are done reading it you will be much better informed to move ahead. Getting Started in Currency Trading: Winning in Todays Hottest Marketplace (Getting Started In.....)

As others have said clearly, this book is a waste of trees, ink and the time of its reader. The "authors" should be ashamed of such blatant hucksterism and poor description of even the most basic aspects of trading. Even if you are a neophyte, look somewhere else.

Well when i grow up i to be Russell R Wasendorf, whether sr. or jr. I think these two are the greatest salesmen around. I bought a wonderful book which adorns my bookcase and adds colour and life to my room. Whats more is that i found the same book in my brother's home. Thinking he 'borrowed' it I asked him, He replied saying he 'invested' in it and it works well as a sleep aide . Seriously some points for beginners are reasonably covered but most of the book was a waste of time, paper and resources. There were no Fine points covered in the book to memory but if there were it was lost in the dribble.

I'll summarize this book for you -- "Foreign Currency Trading is difficult, if you want to learn more, send us some more money and we will enroll you in a class."

Save your money, buy yourself a newspaper instead.

... I have no idea what objective these guys had in mind when they sat down to write this book.... This book is just a bunch of information thrown together (probably downloaded from the internet) and they obviously took no time to put any real effort into this book. I was terribly dissappointed with my purchase of this book.....look elsewhere if you are interested in getting started in forex trading.

The author spends way too much time explaining basic economic indicators that should be basic knowledge for any investor. After I read another review that outlined the blundering editorial mistakes, I had to see for myself. All true! I cannot continue reading this text... How can anyone who makes this many conspicuous mistakes get a book deal much less be right about anything? Not worth the $70 price tag!

As the author of the book "Futures For Small Speculators" I tend to be very critical of books that discuss my industry. Although this book had a few editorial mistakes, Mr.Gotthelf still did a solid job of getting his point across. For a beginner this is a great start. For more indepth analysis I would go to Mr. Cornelius Luca's books.

How else to explain that banks are brought down not by "rogue" traders but rather by "rouge" traders - is there a secret market for cosmetics derivatives? - that Switzerland has adopted the Euro, that a chart is described as listing a gain from 93 to 97 but only shows a gain of 93 to 95 etc., etc., etc ad nauseam.

In my eyes, this book is so pathetic that it is only a slight exaggeration to suggest that all those involved in the creation of this book should never be allowed to touch paper and pencil again.

In theory the concept of parity is belieivable.But to implement it I guess one would need some really sophisticated tool and the book is not a practical guide to implement his concept. Even though book needs serious editing, someone academically inclined may find this book interesting.

It appears that Gotthelf dictated much of this book into a tape recorder, some far-away typist created the manuscript, and nobody bothered to read or edit the final result. How else to explain that "Jim Ellis is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oracle" on p.43 (I thought it was Larry Ellison)? These sorts of editorial lapses are rife throughout the book.

To name but a few examples, Fig 6.5 caption says "Cash Currency trading screen" but it's actually a bar chart of Yen futures (p.124)

The data for Figure 8.11 (a perpetual contracts bar chart of Yen) is presented with the caption of Figure 8.10 ("Soybeans futures monthly chart"). No soybeans chart is presented at all; instead, a Nikkei futures chart mysteriously appears (p. 212)

Figure 8.41 is printed upside down! (p.236). Honestly. This is perhaps the ultimate insult to the reader and ought to be a source of acute embarrassment to the editor and author.

Academy Award nominee James Caan, with two a's, will be amused to read p. 89 which states "... has been depicted in fiction such as the movie Rollerball starring James Cann" with two n's.

Those who buy the book believing it may deliver on the dustjacket's promise "How to trade the world's biggest market" will receive a disappointment. The only trading strategy Gotthelf reveals is "Go Long when price crosses above a moving average, Go Short when price crosses below a moving average." Then he regurgitates standard methods of creating a synthetic position using options. There is absolutely nothing new here.

No review would be complete without mentioning Gotthelf's mysterious concept of Parity. First he tells you it's "a ratio that always equals one" (page 24). Next he tells you "there are no exact relationships" in FOREX (page 32), leaving you to wonder how Parity could always equal one if there are no exact relationships. Then he muddles through two hundred more pages and eventually you, the reader, decode the fact (which Gotthelf never bothers to state exactly) that his "Parity" actually means "Equilibrium". Great. But where's the insight?

I own several other Wiley Finance books and all of them have wonderful quotes from important figures in the trading world, in the form of testimonials and gushing recommendations on the rear dustjacket. Kaufman's "Trading Systems and Methods" has five, Hill and Pruitt's "The Ultimate Trading Guide" has four, Ryan Jones's "The Trading Game" has five, Sweeney's "Maximum Adverse Excursion" has three, et cetera ad nauseum. But this currency book by Gotthelf has exactly zero quotes on the dustjacket. No recommendations, no congratulations, no endorsements. I suggest you follow the advice of everyone who DIDN'T write a recommendation for Gotthelf's book: stay away.

This is an awful book. Each currency pair gets a chapter in the book. Some general background and some charts are provided for each pair. That's the whole story. I cannot understand how such a poor manuscript can be published under the name of a reputable publisher. This book isn't even worth $5. Zero stars!

Addition: I didn't try to copy the earlier reviewer when I wrote this!

Just a bunch a historical forex charts on the major currencies. The authors add a ridiculous data called "activity" that simply shows that the forex market is very active during the european and the american sessions (wow, what a revelation, like we did not notice already!) and voila! you have a totally worthless "book" selling for almost 90 bucks. Save your money and run fast, even if this "book" was simply given away for free, it would still be expensive!!! It's a pity, amazon does not have a MINUS 5 star rating.