Foreign-market Books

I read this book. A friend new to Forex gave me his copy and asked what I thought.

I read it. I believe it to be honest, straight forward but VERY basic. Which is fine, but you can get all the contents of this book and more if you use Google and read many of the free materials most of the big brokers have to give away to tempt you to open an account with them.

If you do not have internet access (now...how you will trade Forex without live charts streaming to you is beyond me !!!) then this is a good read.

This book provides excellent information on how to trade.
First, a fundamental analysis of the economy is critical.
Analyze trends in currencies and the underlying causes.
Next , the technical analysis is critical. This analysis
includes price trends and the effects of the trends.

The author advises to consider buying "at the dips".
Buying signals are at resistance breakthroughs and the
existence of definitive trends. Ascending triangles form
upward patterns which signal buying opportunities.

There are a number of other rule structures. i.e.
o Fibonacci extensions give the target price area.

o The DMI index provides an idea of direct movement.

o Bollinger bands are curves around the price structure.

o Stock trading volume is important, as well as the Price/
Earnings Ratio. Generally, investors do not want to pay
too much for a stock.

o The day charts show trading in 24 hour increments.

o Important economic indicators are inflation, employment,
consumer spending etc.

o The PPI shows the producer price index or change in prices.

In my experience, the FOREX INDICATORS are important with regard
to stock purchase/selling decisions.

I didn't actually read this, I'm just being mean because I hate authors who put pictures of themselves on the covers of their books. Gives me the impression that they are actually a greasy salesman and the book is nothing but a comeone for some seminar or website or anything else that can suck money out of you. The red power tie and the made easy title only reinforce that assumption and then I get extra cynical when the guy has funny name on top of it. I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but let's face it...the guy looks like a Dick.

It is because I am an entrepreneur and a capitalist that I got into Forex trading. Therefore I must admire and respect those who achieve monumental success such as James Dicks. And I actually enjoy reading a book or e-book that is a good sales letter for another product. People who resent such things would do well to go through T.Harv Eker's Millionaire Mind training and other such wealth consciousness training. However, I think most people in the Forex world now realize that Forex Made Easy is a software that produces green arrows for a buy signal and red arrows for a sell signal. The programming behind the software, I am told, is based on a simple signal that is taught in at least a similar form in many introductory trading courses. Following the signal requires users to remain ignorant of all the other factors that could eliminate most of the losses. Many people who started out with Forex Made Easy have told me that they did not start learning to trade until they went on to other sources of training. I believe that Forex Made Easy may not have ever had their customer's best interest nor their success as a motivating factor when creating the company. They have made a huge amount of money with late night TV commercials and high pressure "free introductory seminars".

And now that their reputation is well known to be less than honorable the company has reincarnated as Premiere Trading with a new round of late night TV commercials. I am not saying that Premiere Trading is connected with Forex Made Easy. But apparently James Dicks is the leader of both companies. Of course, there is nothing wrong with advertising on late night TV. I am just a little concerned about the integrity of these organizations. The real profit in this industry is in finding a continuous stream of new customers and connecting them with an Introducing Broker and watching them lose their accounts in the first 6 months. Consequently, it is hard to find sources of help in the Forex world that are committed to the long term success of their clients. The industry is driven by the unregulated Forex brokers and most of the training and information that is available is geared toward what makes the most money for the brokers.

There is essentially no topic in this book presented with enough quality information to allow the reader to make any consistent profit from FOREX trading. If you picked the book up in a bookstore and wrote a list of the topics on a piece of paper, you would have a place to start your search. In other words, don't waste your money. The only reason I did not "hate the book" is because the information is essentially accurate. But trading FOREX successfully (actually any successful trading) is difficult. In this market you are trading with or against enormously deep pockets who know more than you.

If you want some alternative ideas, consider these three:
1. Currency Trading; Philip Gotthelf; Wiley; 2003
2. Day Trading the Currency Market; Kathy Lien; Wiley; 2006
3. Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom-second edition; Van K Tharp; McGraw-Hill; 2007.

I used to love Cheryl Holt, but now . . . not so much. This book is indicative of the Holt that I don't like at all - unlikeable characters, idiotic plot points, and then the most unforgiveable of crimes - no romance. Yes, there was sex. But between the two main characters - the first time they do it was around page 200 and it was not that good a scene. There's lots of voyeurism, and disloyalty. The hero is simultaneously an idiot and a royal jerk to the heroine, for months and months. The heroine is simultaneously boring and quite stupid, taking the hero back into her bed after. . . um. . . she looks at him, despite his very hurtful and longstanding betrayals. But then he apologized so profusely - oh wait, no he doesn't. At all. I can't even say this book was formulaic - because the formulas for romance novels are good. This book . . . isn't even good enough to be called formulaic. It's just. . .boring and not worth your time to read it.

Trash. Trashy trash at that. Don't waste your time. No plot, no subplot and no substance to the characters. Certainly no integrity in either one. Rubbish.

Yes, the sex was steamy. But there was no relationship between the two main characters. They spent more time talking to themselves in their heads than they did to each other. Sarah, apparently, is extremely good at reading body language, as this is how she learned all about Michael. Michael only needed to know that he lusted after Sarah. Michael's relationship with family friend Pamela was better developed. What a disappointment!

This plot line had me very annoyed. It's almost a given in romance novel-especially Regencies/historicals, that the hero acts in an asinine way towards to heroine. Usually we expect that the said hero sees the error of his ways, and seeks out the heroine asking for forgiveness. Or maybe he doesnt seek her out, but when he does realise he acted like an a$$, he either begs forgiveness, makes some speech, does SOMETHING...ANYTHING to show REMORSE.
Cheryl Holt decided to not have that in her novel (how provincial, she may have though).
It really bothered me that for 6 months the heroine was scared wondering how she could eat/live because she was sent away and had no income, and the hero was so caught up in himself he didn't try to find out if she needed aid. And when they did meet up, it was all about sex- or sexual congress as Holt would have called it.
All in all, ineffectual hero and silly plot.

I decided to ignore the few negative reviews and found this book totally absorbing. It has passion (hot, hot, hot passion) and lots of it...(as I think it should well be with any couple in love/lust real or within the pages of a book). It never ceases to amaze me when I read prudish (sorry) reviews...lol...I mean let's face it, isn't that WHY most of us WANT to read a love story in the first place? This book is well thought out and well written, Holt has penned a moving romance between two very strong people who need to find a way to each other amid the many hurdles thrown their way, the process is filled with sweet innocence, heart wrenching scenes, biting wit and great dialogue. I couldn't put it down. The story is moving on many different levels for both of the main characters .. and you can certainly feel for both Micheal but also with poor Sarah being at the whim of first her horrible father and then even worse her brother ... let's not forget what a long way we've really come, because as we are (or should be) reminded when we read historical novels, women back then had very, VERY few choices... their very survival depended upon the whims of the men in their lives.

I have previous editions of this book which I found initially helpful but this " updated" one is hardly that. It still lists stores that closed 6 years ago!!!!! The author has not done her research recently and it is reflected by inaccurate data causing shopping angst!

When this series started 20+ years ago, it was interesting and fresh. Now it merely looks old,out-of-date and worthless. Suzy's editorial style is intensely irritating. She's a fashionista who couldn't be less interested in anything you can't wear. And I agree with the other reviewers - most of it is years out of date.

I always eagerly await Suzy's latest Born To Shop Editions from all over the world and this one didn't disappoint. Since she has lived there for over 5 years this edition has been stream lined to perfect. Even with the transportation strike while visiting this past 2 weeks.............Thanks!!

Update: I love travel guides filled with glossy color photos & buy lots of them but I also purchase ALL of Suzy's books since she is so fascinating and fill in the blanks-this brand new Paris edition arrived today & I am a happy lady planning my next adventure!!!!

I've been traveling to Paris for 35 years (lived there for one) and so, know the city fairly well.... A friend lent me this book, and I tried to use it during the 3 weeks I spent in Sept-Oct of last year (2006), and was very disappointed. I mapped out the locations of several of the shops Suzy raves about, and arrived, only to find that the store was no longer (was it ever?) at the address she gave. If you know Paris, you know that there are tons of little, hard-to-find-rues, so it was VERY frustrating to spend so much time looking....and finding nothing. I would suggest she do her homework before she publishes another guide.

I purchased this book a little while before going to Paris and read it cover to cover, made maps, reference marks on my maps (basically went over board) believing I had invested money in a guide that was somewhat acurate. Sadly, I was mistaken - many of the stores mentioned were either no longer in business or were at another address. Most of the advice was off the cuff and not honest enough to be taken seriously by anyone. It is a fun read, don't get me wrong, but more as fiction than fact. Paris is a living, breathing animal of a city, always changing - i realize now that advice, not military precision shopping, is what I am looking for, and this is not it.

Even though I needed this book for a class it was very interesting. Glad that my instructor chose it.It does not focus on one group of people, it shares information about a large number of various cultures across the world.

I wouldn't have normally purchased this book if it wasn't for a course requirement. From chapter one all the way to the end, the authors take the reader or student through a detailed interface of what life is like experienced in other cultures. It touches upon the four different career interests in cultural anthropology as well. A time consuming read, but loaded with useful information for in and out of the class room.

I tried to read and like this book; I really did. But after about 1/3 I refused to go on. Nothing truly worthy while is in this book, the writers do nothing but praise anthropology without telling you more about it, and all information is from a naturalistic, relativism, and liberal stand point. Anthropology hinges on the stance taken, and I think these writers would discover much by opening their minds.

for a text book, this book is ok. It's a bit dry.. and for some unknown reason the words.. "that being said" are in the front of a lot of sentences.. The cd has links to a lot of web sites and what not, I thought it would be more "live" action but it's mostly websites.. book is understandable and basicaly an easy read. There is a very lefty spin on the book. The portrayal of industrialization as evil..and all these "traditional cultures" as the only "good" way to live despite their wars and what not, that's seen as "ok" or conflict resolution, apparently if you go to war nude, it's better than if you're wearing army fatigues..

Just as with Haviland, et al - Anthropology: The Human Challenge (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac®), there is to much opinion and to little good science.
Certainly a lot of information, but when flavored with such a bias against "Western Civilization" it is 528 pages to be avoided not required reading in an introductory Cultural Antro. course. I hate to use monikers, but this is liberal junk, not a good introduction to the subject of Cultural Antrhopology. One should introduce a science and its methodology to students, not ones personal opinions and possible agendas.

I agree with Ed Ponsi the author of some good Forex dvd's when he said "This book is a refreshingly honest work that contains no hype or promises of easy money. Instead, Marilyn covers all of the bases in a truthful manner and gets right to the core issues that determine success or failure in the Forex market. This manual will serve as a much needed eye opener for those who have been 'blinded by the hype. I am happy with what I got out of it.

The other reviewer was right, very chatty tone but nothing that would prepare anyone for a forex trading experience.

This book reads more like a pamphlet than an actual book. If you're looking for anything beyond the most basic introduction, look elsewhere.

This book starts off with a factual error on the first page of the introduction and goes downhill from there. It is not true that individuals were able to start trading in FX only in 2000. What about the futures market? Other errors abound, like the assertion that no other market is so "schizophrenic." There is no evidence and none offered here that the FX market is more volatile or choppy than any other security. As for the section on swaps, there is no mention of the underlying money markets that determine the swap rate. The tone is chatty to the point of cutesy, which is annoying. The writer is obviously an amateur in both trading and in FX. The section on technicals is lifted wholesale from other sources and offers no insight, while the fundamentals section is laughably brief and context-free. A waste of time.

I bought this book on a whim because I was frustrated. Incredibly, I couldn't find any information on how to figure out the swap rate. I have 3 big forex books on my shelf and they wax eleoquent about technical analysis, the Bretton Woods agreement, how to make a fortune, and etc. - but do not explain something as fundamental as figuring the swap rate - or even why there is such a thing! I tried Googling for it, and got tired of trying to sort through the deluge of irrelevant and mostly commercial results. So when I read "swap rate" in the book description here at Amazon.com - I bought it immediately with expedited shipping!

When I recieved the book, I quickly found the answer. The author made it easy to understand. Then I got curious about the rest of the book, and sat down and read it in one day. I really like the author's no B.S. style of writing. She covers the really important stuff in a concise, easy to understand way. She includes personal anecdotes from her own trading experience which made it fun to read. She does not try to tell you how you can beat the market every time and get rich overnight by using her secret trading system - (like so many other books and web sites). I find it refreshing to read a book like this that takes little of my precious time, yet gives me the essential tools I need to help me find my own way to success.

"The Advanced Grammar Book" should be on every advanced ESL student's bookshelf. Having seen numerous grammar books published in the US and Britain, I can with no doubt recommend this item. It contains very clear explanations of all complex grammatical structures in English and allows students to practice them thoroughly in context. Each of the 15 chapters revolves around a topic. New structures are introduced through a reading passage, followed by a careful explanation of the grammar points in the form of a chart and a number of exercises. The accompanying Workbook offers even more practice exercises. An additional strength of the book is the fact that the topics are very current and provide the students with the rather advanced vocabulary which is particularly helpful for ESL students preparing for the TOEFL and American college studies.

I'm not certain to what the author suggests we should advance grammar, but I'm definitely unimpressed with the title.

This book covers a wide range of topics, but it does not go into detail in explaing them. The treatment of grammatical structures, especially tenses and conditionals, is broad but superficial, leaving out important cases, thus making the book of limited value for advanced students who require clarification of grammatical nuances, not a survey of topics. It is more suitable as an introductory text for beginning ESL students, as a foundation for further study.

This slim volume lists all types of markets by the day of the week or month and location. There's also usually a contact number for more information. If you're going to be in Italy during the first weekend of the month, or the second Tuesday, say, you can check the listings for that time period. There are a few blank pages at the end of the book to write your own personal market notes!

No doubt people will need local maps and/or guidebooks to help locate the markets; this book will work best in addition to other guidebooks - not as a replacement.

I have used other books of this kind in the past for other countries. This one seem to lack the fundamentals for this type of informational book. #1 You must write this book for someone who is not familiar with the local surroundings or the languages. #2 In the years that will be called the new millinneum people want to just blow in and blow out. When I travel I have a limited time and budget to see the flea markets available. In this book there is alot of leg work the author could have provided but for some reason did not.#3 If you speak fluent italian you can call all the phone #'s provided if they are still current. I on the other hand will have to hire a translator. If the author would provide maps, locations to trains, location to major city monuments, and make things easy for the reader to find, the hidden treasures she has found would be available to her reader, which should be her goal. When I travel many times I have up to 5 days in which to find this type of treasure. With this book it would be difficult to accomplish what I would like, but with more effort from the author this book could be a complete guide for any traveler.

I got this cute little book as a gift for my mother who loves antiques and is traveling to Italy this summer.
Unfortunately, the information is organized by day of the week - and not by location. There is no index that cross-references by location (i.e. city, region). So you end up reading through every single entry for "2nd Sunday of the Month" just to find a market that's taking place that day in Firenze.

I have found this dictionary very frustrating in that I cannot find even common words in it or that the definition given is not the most common one. As a new Spanish student, I will use this dictionary first because it is lightweight and portable, but constantly I end up using my desktop dictionary because this one didn't have what I was looking for. I am ready to toss it and buy a different pocket version.

This portable dictionary is useful for first and second year students working at their desks, but should be supplemented in the classroom by a more comprehensive resource.

We live in the Dominican Replubic and this dictionary did not contain many of the words we need to communicate or read the newspaper. Even our Spanish teacher found it was incomplete.

Very naive - these guys need to work harder before publising. Some terrible naive comments - reads like a bad essay at university and perhaps even high school. waste of money... Terrible stuff a shame that anyone published this.

I must respectfully disagree with the esteemed reviewers of this book listed above. I expected so much more from a book with such a fine pedigree (Brookings and the US Council on Foreign Relations).

The topic of how states use financial instruments towards their foreign policy goals is an area which certainly requires more understanding. As such, I expected this book to be an in-depth study of the various ways states have used such tools, and how the authors expect such tools to be used in the future. I thus expected analyses of topics such as how states respond to currency crises of allies and enemies and how states use counterfeiting of enemies' currencies as foreign policy (i.e. as Iran is alleged to do with the US dollar). I also expected a study of how states manipulate access to important currencies (as when the US cut Panama off from receiving dollars as part of an effort to topple Noreiga) and how they have sought to manipulate the foreign financial press (as is alleged to have happened during the classical Gold Standard era).

Some of these topics did receive mention. The issue of how the US should respond to allies' crises received good coverage, especially regarding South Korea. There was also one paragraph acknowledging that countries have counterfeited others' currencies, and a brief discussion of petro-dollar recycling. Moreover, I found the chapter on how interest groups have attempted to restrict access to US capital markets to further other goals very illuminating, and there was a nice summary of anti-terrorism finance legislation. Overall, I found the first half of the book very enlightening.

Unfortunately, the other half of the book dealt predominantly with the authors' assertions that dollarization should be the way forward for developing countries to prevent currency crises, and in particular, that the US should encourage this and absorb some of the costs. The issues of whether countries should use floating, dirty float, pegged or dollarized exchange rates is an important one. However, I did not pick up this book to read about the authors' assertions about dollarization--I picked it up to read about financial statecraft.

Financial statecraft will only grow in importance, and as the authors note, it is critical that policymakers understand how it functions and what tools are at their disposal. This book only discusses financial statecraft primarily in its first 80 pages (and scattered in some places in the latter part of the book as well). I feel eighty pages was just too little to adequately examine financial statecraft. Instead, the reader is unfortunately left with a quick gloss-over of only a few aspects of such an important and under-analyzed topic.

Steil and Litan define economic statecraft as applying economic means to influence other actors in the international system, and financial statecraft as those aspects of economic statecraft that are directed at influencing capital flows. They cover a wide range of issues, starting from the recycling of petrodollars in the 1970s to the fight against the financing of terrorism after 9/11, with special highlights on financial sanctions against non-state actors and on the foreign policy dimension on financial crises.

Capital market sanctions, the idea of restricting access to the US capital markets in the service of foreign policy aims, are increasingly popular in some quarters, reflecting the growing importance of capital transactions over trade flows. The authors demonstrate that it is also an incredibly stupid idea: money is fungible, and the capital that is not raised in New York can be easily raised elsewhere at the same cost. Even if all major stock markets cooperated to bar access to targeted companies that operate in certain rogue states or participate in arms dealings, the small rise in the cost of capital that these firms would incur would be vastly offset by the gains accrued from these operations.
The authors raise the example of PetroChina, which Congress tried to ban from listing on the New York Stock Exchange because of its involvement in the Sudanese energy sector. The public campaign against the Chinese company assembled a motley crew of activists, ranging from organizations associated with the Christian Right to the AFL-CIO and human rights advocates. In the end, the IPO was scaled down and the campaigners claimed victory, as the AFL-CIO convinced some pension funds not to invest in the Chinese company.

Meanwhile, the share price of PetroChina quadrupled in four years, and Sudan now exports 85% of its oil to China. Interestingly, the main foreign investor in the company is the US mogul Warren Buffet, known for his investment acumen and who acquired 14% of the company through the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, where most of its shares are listed. The idea that foreign firms can raise capital only on Wall Street and that US investors wait at home for them to come is simply wrong.

This book is a reminder that "policymakers frequently apply financial statecraft with a poor understanding of how financial markets actually work, leading to policy actions which are inadequate or which exacerbate the problems they are trying to remedy."

The above reviewer isn't Michael Duane Archer, by any chance? The same author who has co-authored several Forex books with James L. Bickford? If it is, the sandbagging here speaks volume.

One of the perhaps a dozen intermediate-advanced market books and half that many FOREX books I would consider indispensible. 'Trading the News' is the hot FOREX topic today. Forex Shockwave Analysis quantifies the market's reaction to the news and the sometimes even more useful aftershock. A rare book that bridges the gap between technical and fundamental analysis - and does it very well. Caution: Some deep reading here, but, IMHO, worth the effort.

I read Shockwave analysis with an open mind.

Actually, an eager mind willing to discover some scholarly work on forex news-trading, usually one of the first trading methods attempted by the least able, the rank beginner.

I did enjoy reading the book. It is full of different types of charts that I've never seen before. I'm not sure that it is very helpful for its promoted purpose, though.

James Bickford displays a great deal of interesting data indicating that the forex markets definitely have a peak volume period at the typical news broadcast periods. With derived time-of-day activity charts. It is very clear that news forces moves in the markets.

Most forex traders already know that. It is nice to see supporting data, and the range charts for non-news vs. news periods was interesting. What was disconcerting to me was my expectations, and probably that of most readers looking for forex edges-- were not met.

Maybe I expected too much.

The advertising for the book highlights the newstime price disruptions that forex traders typically observe using a reliable clock and weekly news release guide on the internet. The advertising goes on, "Accurately predicting which way thse spikes will run is the key to impressive earnings in the spot currency market."

With that pronouncement, I was expecting some help, some method to forecast the direction or facilitate trade of these moves.

There were many chapters on Mr. Bickford's ideas of forex wave theory, a derivation of Elliott wave theory, with swings determined by his own special algorithm. Even in these chapters there wasn't much in the way of guidelines that might prove a better way of trading news.

What little direction about trading news "shockwaves" offered is based on the price action from less than 20 consecutive Friday news days. I dare not tell how simple the only suggestions were. With such a small sample size, you could infer any possible action as a valid one with equal validity.

Mr. Bickford did offer a caveat at the end of the book, just before the appendices. (The appendices is no small section. It takes up more than a third of the book with monthly charts and other interesting data that showed me that there is increasing volume in Forex every year, and Fridays have more trade volume due to the news released.) ---Back to the author's caveat. In a small paragraph he admits that this work on news release shockwaves is not an overly exhaustive bit of detailed research on the topic. He reaffirms that what research he is offering is only on the specified Fridays from 8:00 to 10:00 pm in the EUD/USD pair. He offers the work revealed as an introduction to trading the volatile timeframes selected for news trading.

One final part of his advertising is very accurate. He indicates this book contains "Reliable strategies for identifying, analyzing, and categorizing shockwaves in the Forex." (Note: he did not say that the strategies in the book would help you trade....)

If you like to have scholarly-looking books on your mantle with cool titles, and very impressive, good-looking charts, Forex Shockwave Analysis is your book.

For a practical, how to "get the job done" book, you might want to look at
Day Trading the Currency Market: Technical and Fundamental Strategies To Profit from Market Swings (Wiley Trading)
by Kathy Lien. It has solid suggestions on how to manage the risk of forex trading through many different approaches, including news.

I have no connection with either author. I just trade for myself and am always happy to find out new material available to my industry.

Joel Rensink