Foreign-exchange-broker Books

The Book gives a good overview of the variety of Investments available. Since I have seen the Book before I ordered it there were no surprises.

Although the foreign exchange market is the world's largest financial market, this book will prove valuable to traders or behavioral finance scholars involved with any financial market. Oberlechner brings the perspective of a clinical psychologist/anthropologist to observe this arena of human chaos and madness. Paradoxes that confound at first, seem clearer when viewed from his lens.

For the practical-minded reader interested in financial trading, this book will hold up a mirror to help examine yourself. Much of trading, after all, is psychology! As one expert points out in this book, "traders don't just bring their money to the market, they also bring themselves!" It is chilling to read, for instance, about how market trends may just be held up by rumor. How traders use metaphors to make sense of the vast markets (eg, using likening it to warzone or to a lover or to a bazaar or to a casino, etc), is also discussed and may help sort out your own mental algorithms for simplifying financial decision-making:

But if financial markets are full of chaos and madness, human nature, when seen and understood through the social scientist's perspective is a constant. Oberlechner compares the behavior of today's traders to human behavior from prior periods: not just the tulip mania bubble but also primitive tribes. E.g., on one island, fishermen exposed to the perils of the open sea exhibited far more superstitious beliefs than those in calmer waters. Does that seem reminiscent of the belief systems of gamblers and traders compared to staid bankers? Perhaps the practical trader may get hints from reading this about how to tame the human beast within to make profits.

Academicians will benefit from the treasure of citations to relevant psychological and behavioral finance literature. Not to imply in the least that this is a dry tome! In fact, the book reads very well, combining logic with poetic flow: I found it hard to put down the book and found myself taking it with me on the subway. You can tell this is someone who has observed the market participants and isn't just an ivy tower academician.

This book is valuable to any person trading any market. It enforces the thought that you bring yourself to the market, be it currencies, futures, stocks, or bonds. A person is the product of their environment, culture, parents, education and experiences which influences their perception of the markets. It is very difficult to observe what the market is doing without observing what it is doing to you. All markets are a mind game.

I am a veteran forex dealer and in-house trainer of our dealers; this book is required reading. From the opening quote in the introduction of the book you are introduced to the concept that "psychology" is everything in dealing. Believe it! Though the book provides no canned solutions to dealing, it does give you the essential foundations to begin to build your own dealing models.

If you are interested in the result of a survey done through over 300 FX traders in 5 countries or over 200 bibliographies for your own thesis, you will be absolutely delighted. If you want to sharpen your trading edge or simply to have fun (like what Fiasco, Pit Bull, Liar's Poker and Wall Street Meat do), you will be very disappointed.

I would like to give you an example. In page 154 the author listed a table of importance ratings of successful trader characteristics (n=291, 1=unimportant, 4=very important) of 23 items ranging from Quick Reaction Time (mean=3.71, sd=0.50) & Discipline (mean=3.65, sd=0.55) to Computer Literacy (mean=2.54, sd=0.78) & Social Skills (mean=2.52, sd=0.74). Some might find it helpful. As a veteran pro FX trader and trading book lover who read to sharpen my edge in one of the most competitive market, I dont.

Perhaps the author had just tried too hard to post the findings of his survey into a book that the chapters and thus content are quite disoriented (I strongly suggest you to take a look of the content page available on Amazon). Sorry to say that there are plenty of much better trading psychology books in the market (though not dedicated to FX, but still relevant and applicable). IMHO, "Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing" by Hersh Shefrin and "The psychology of Finance by Lars Tvede" should be better choices.

p.s. I had overlooked the fact that the two five star reviews (this should be the third review of this book) were written by two one-review-only readers. Shame on me!

It is useful for the investment analysts.