Futures-market

When I picked up this book, I expected something similar to the book All About Market Timing, which overall I thouht was a good book. However, I got something very different in this book. This book consists of an introduction to a handful of indicators, such as on balance volume, the macd, moving averages, stochastics, and some subjective price patterns.
The description of these indicators seems okay to me, although nothing special. He has a brief section on options, where he makes a lot of extremely dubious claims, including the often-repeated professionals sell options, amatuers buy them. I suppose if you repeat this lie often enough, somebody is bound to believe it. He goes on to describe what is apparently his preferred option strategy: covered calls. There's nothing wrong with covered calls or being long premium or any other option strategy, but to claim that one is correct and the others are wrong is quite questionable.

He also is fond of uncovered puts, as a viable option strategy -- unfortunately, this strategy does not work out over the long term; you make steady small profits until you encounter a 10+ sigma event in the market, and get blown out. The lessons of LTCM and Niederhoffer should not be forgotten, especially given that equities markets trend far more than one would assume based on a log normal distribution. High probability trades are not always good trades!

I'm trying to get a handle on the intended audience of this book. It seems to be intended for people new to a technical approach to the market, and if that's the case, I don't think it'd make it to my top 100 list of such books. If someone is new to technical approaches, i'd probably recommend the much smaller (and in my view, much more useful) The Visual Investor by John Murphy.

Overall, I think this book should be avoided like the plague. There's nothing new in this book, just rehashed age-old advice, some of which is dubious, some of which is good.

This book has an exellent balance between TA and prescriptive action. It's not enought to be able to read a chart, you have to know when to act and what action to take given what the chart is telling you. This is not the very best book on TA, it is the very best marriage of TA and practical advice as to what to do with the TA. For example. Both for long and short positions he has a long check list you should make copies of and go through for each stock you take a position on. Further, he has three excellent case studies on buying into an established trend, buying a long term breakout, and buying into a repidly moving market. His 6 chapters on Selling Short are the only reference materials I could find when researching a book on shorting, still in print, of any substance. Again there is a checklist and case studies. Finally, his two chapters on Market Myths should be posted above every online investor's computer.

As a long-time avocate of investing on both the short and long side of the market I love the symetrical thinking throughout this book. There is just no way you will become a good investor unless you adopt this symetrical view because as every investor must realize by now, the market doesn't just go up, it goes up 2/3'rds of the time, and down 1/3rd of the time at twice the rate. It's a pitty this book is so little known. If you are on the perverbial desert island, this is the investment book you want. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of TA look at the Bible, Technical Analysis of Stock Trends 7th Edition by Edwards and Magee. ISBN 0-8144-0373-5. Mere mortals should prefer Alexander's book. Best of trades!

RocketRoys

As good a book as you will read on Technical Analysis as it relates to the Stock Market. Very well written and edited with lots of charts demonstrating real case histories of the strategies employed. All the material was practically presented in a clear and logical manner. In short it was a an easy read which is good because you will want to return to it often to review key points of interest. Stresses the importance of looking at the markets from first the long term (months) to the intermediate term (weeks) and finally to time your trades using the short term (days). Well done and thanks.

Peppers and Rogers may be the pioneers of one-to-one marketing techniques (or maybe even not), but they're terrible book writers. I've read their articles on the same topics, and they're much more concise. In the book, you learn all you really need to know in the first few paragraphs of each chapter; the rest is just regurgitation. I eventually gave up; I just couldn't read it anymore. You'd be better off reading a few articles, or someone else's books, unless you have an extremely high attention span or no background whatsoever in the concepts they discuss. They're very smart people, but if you've already learned the basics, this book will waste your time.

Peppers and Rogers wrote a pioneering work on reaching customers, that taught marketers to look beyond "segments" to the individual people who actually bought their products or services. But they make an essential mistake in confusing the customer's familiarity with a particular business with having a relationship. Relationships exist between people who know one another, and a business relationship is one in which the customer deals with the same provider for each transaction. An example is a personal trainer you go to each time you work out, or a using the same accountant (not just the same accounting firm) for many years at tax time, or going to the same hairstylist, even following her when she moves to a new salon. These are real relationships, but phoning a catalog company and talking to a different person each time, even if that person can check your past orders and already has the billing information, is NOT a relationship.

Using technology to make a transaction more efficient can be a service to customers. People do not always seek a relationship with their provider; sometimes they want anonymity, and the idea that the provider organization "knows" all about them can be scary. Only by distinguishing between real relationships and the kind of "pseudo-relationship" that Peppers and Rogers advocate can you sort out these issues.

To learn more about the concept of "relationship" versus the more common service encounter (between customer and provider who do not know each other and do not expect to interact again), read The Brave New Service Strategy by Dr. Barbara A. Gutek and Theresa Welsh. They postulate a service model that consists of a triangle of Customer, Organization and Provider (COP).

Having spent many years in sales and marketing, and now as an author (Windows 98 and MCSE Study Tips for Dummies) and trainer/documentation specialist, I can tell you that no one has a better handle on the customer relationship building subject than Don Peppers and Martha Rogers. Following this book through several reprints and revisions, it continues to get better and better. The subject matter is complex, yet they have encapsulated it in a way that makes it easy for anyone to read and comprehend. Kudos for an excellent job!

I read this book in 1975 while in 7th grade and thought it was awesome. However, the future "Shock" has failed to materialize as predicted.

Almost all of the technological changes that really changed society happenned from 1850-1950. If you took a person from the developed world in 1950 (let alone 1970, the date of this book) and plopped them in 2004, they'd have little trouble adapting. Air travel, telephones, radio, TV, etc. would all be completely familair......... Even much ballyhooed technology such as the Internet or cell phones are easily understood and refinements of older technologies.....

Now take someone from 1850 and drop them in 1950.....That would be a Future Shock!

Alvin Toffler is one crackerjack sociologist. He wrote a series of books concerning the direction of society, the first being this book, Future Shock. Future Shock was written in 1970, and it must have caused a sensation at the time. Toffler examines so many sociological issues that the mere scope of this book is mind-boggling. Toffler went on to write The Third Wave and Powershift, both of which I have not read. While some of Toffler's theories in this book did not pan out, most the observations he makes are eerily true.

Toffler's main argument is that humanity, as of 1970, is in the midst of an enormous shift from an industrial society to a super-industrial society. This new society will be characterized by such things as an acceleration of images, words, ideas, and technologies that could possibly overwhelm mankind (Sound familiar? Watch the news tonight and see how many graphics float by on the screen). Mankind will suffer a serious disconnect when these new ideas reach their fruition (if not well before then). This disconnect is "future shock," an inability to process the enormous amounts of information and change associated with the super-industrial revolution. Toffler likens future shock to the same sort of disorientation that a person experiences when he moves to a new area, or a new country, and suffers a severing of all he has known. While some people can adjust with seeming ease to this kind of dislocation, most of us suffer various maladies from this "shock." Toffler ends up attributing most of societies ills to this jarring social shock. Crime, drug use, the disintegration of society, the burgeoning of quasi-religious movements: all of these are symptoms of a society that can no longer cope with the vast amounts of information and change that technology is bringing about.

These changes involve education, work, government and other dimensions of life. Toffler believes that we should not be afraid to scrap massive sections of any of these areas if doing so can improve our chances of adjusting and functioning within the new society. Toffler proposes forming numerous groups that would deal exclusively with trying to take charge of the situation so that a safer, slower future will come about. Toffler even supports oversight of technology so that any new products or ideas can be examined to determine their effects on society at large (a big no-no to big business).

Some of Toffler's visions are pretty impressive. Toffler predicts that work will increasingly be made up of short-range ad hoc committees that would tackle specific problems within a company. This is certainly true today, although the hierarchy is still alive and well in the business community. Toffler also saw the explosion in the entertainment industry, even though some of his ideas are pretty weird and have yet to be realized. Such ideas as genetic engineering and cloning are still in the formative stages, but Toffler mentions them here as well. One of the more interesting observations in this book concerns the structure of the family. Toffler sees divorce as a problem, and he proposes the idea of short-term contractual marriages as a possible solution. I whole-heartedly support this idea if it doesn't involve alimony payments! He also believes that children could be farmed out to families whose sole purpose in society would be to take care of kids. Kind of like daycare, except the little rugrats won't come home at the end of the day.

There really isn't any reason to read this book today unless you're a sociologist, interested in seeing the same old day-to-day stuff in a new way, or just interested in seeing how freaky some of Toffler's ideas are. Mr. Toffler does come off as a huge socialist, and that's a bit scary. Still, this is an intelligent book written in an easy style. You could do a lot worse than reading this one.

The world has changed in many of the ways predicted by Toffler.
We are now in the throes of the super-industrial society
he spoke of in the early 1970s. For instance, computing power
has grown exponentially. There is a computer on every work
desk in most corporate offices. Children work with computers
at school. A growing number of people work at home. Electronics
has permeated virtually every part of society from home
calculators/computers to electronic panels in automobiles to super-stereo systems and advanced training systems in industry
and academe. Even childrens' games reflect the growing
sophistication of the super-industrialized world economy.
The internet has become the central repository of data.
Very few of these changes were imaginable from the perspective
of the early 1970s. The super industrial society will progress
technologically. Our challenge will require translating
the industrial progress into the creation of incremental
wealth for every segment of the society. Job re-design and
organizational dynamics have displaced workers and forced
re-training on the continued basis predicted by Toffler.
In fact, a central thesis of his book involved the fast rate
of change and its displacement of technical matter taught in primary school, high school and college. The super-industrialized
society will progress very much the way Toffler envisioned.
Our challenge will be to manage the change and utilize it to
improve the quality of our lives in every aspect previously
unattainable.

I have known Scott for many years, I feel he's a rising star in the futures industry. He is very entertaining and he's honest and knows how to talk to the every day trader. His book is worth reading and his mock trading shows are a must. 5 stars all the way. Congrats Scott on a great book

I loved Scott Slutsky's book, I have recently seen him speak at one of his mock trading sessions, he is very entertaining, and really shows the public how open outcry works. His book is a timely piece that covers the future of trading as we know it today. Everyone should read it.

I have known Scott for many years and his material keeps getting better and better. I am proud to be a trader right now in NYC and things have gotten rough since 9/11. But this book helped me earn over $500,000 in net worth to this day. I recommend this book to anyone that has ever been interested in the trading enviroment and who wants to make money fast!!!

The protagonist was the kids.They wanted to find the Antisct. They wanted to find the Antisct ccauce he was going to destroy the earth.My favorite part is when they find out who the Aniscts is.

After reading the fourth book (Facing the Future) of the "Kids Left Behind" series, I would be scared to be here on earth and experience the tribulation and the events that go along with it.

I would say that this will keep you on your toes and you will not want to stop reading. It also leaves you hanging on a cliff, and you will want to read the next book of the series. --TF

This fourth installment in the Left Behind-The Kids series is, in my opinion, the best in the series so far. In this fourth book, the four teens who are living in a post-Rapture world learn details of the coming holocaust of horrible judgments that will strike the planet, as prophecied in Scripture. They also discover who the Antichrist is at the very end of the book. Also at the end, the four teens realize their purpose in living as Christians in a post-Rapture world. They realize they must get the Truth of the Bible's salvation message to the world to as many people as possible before the end comes,when they learn that the world would come to its end in seven years.

Facing the Future picks up where book 3 left off. Judd and Vicki go to Chicago to witnes the arrest of a mass murderer, by whom they had almost been killed. After the arrest, Judd shares his Faith to a group of police officers. All the officers except one laugh it off. The young Homicide cop Archibald Edwards is interested. Later on in the book, good news and bad news come about. The kids witness to the wife of a police officer about the Gospel message and she become a Christian. Archibald Edwards, the cop who is somewhat interested in the Gospel message, is suddenly killed by the murderer LeRoy Banks when he attempts but fails a jailbreak attempt. This book seems to be trying to make a point, which is this: if you've heard the Gospel message, do not wait; do not put off coming to Christ because you may not have tomorrow to live. Do not risk your life and, more importantly, your afterlife by thinking you have all the time in the world, because you do not!

When the kids learn from Biblical prophesy that within the next seven years, the end of the world would come about through war, famine, pestilences, plagues, earthquakes, and cosmic disturbances, they realize their purpose for living as Christians in a world plunged into mass chaos. They also discover who the Antichrist is when a man who has encountered the Antichrist shares his nightmarish story . . .

I feel that Day Tader II is really a rip-off as it basically just reguritates most of the material found in volume one. THIS is typical Bernstein -- the goal is dollars from book sales, not educating the reader. Mr. Bernstein does not respect his readers, and this is the sad part because he obviously is a highly intelligent man who probably could contribute a lot to the field of daytrading education if he weren't so needy and greedy. I wouldn't go so far as to call him "Jake the Snake", but I do think he should put more care into the content of his books.

Bernsiein has another excellent book. He reviews the tactics taught in Compleat Day Trader I and then goes on to elucidate a number of more advanced topics that, like his other systems, give very clear entry and exit points and therefore help to minimize the risk.

Jake also again warns of the risks of day trading and shows the importance of developing one's own rules and consistently following them in order to avoid making costly mistakes.

I also cannot help but be impressed with an author who plainly states that he is willing to help his readers, provides a means for his readers to contact him, and then actually makes good this statement. I had some difficulty with one of the trading systems Jake presented because the charting program I was using had a mind of its own. While the manufacturer couldn't help me to clear things up, Jake went out of his way e-mailing and faxing me to help work through my system problems, even though the problem has nothing to do with Jake's system.

Jake has another highly informative and easily read book which should be on every day trader's bookshelf.

Having read many books on Day Trading and attended courses and seminars, this book added "confidence". It gives you simple systems to work with, 30MBO, InsideDays, Gaps, etc.. It also tells you what the indicators lack and what most traders lack to succeed, discipline. Use the 30MBO but don't change the method. Stick to it. Be disciplined. Aimed at the futures and commodities traders, these methods also work with fast high volume, high votility stocks. I emailed Jake with a question on the 30MBO and got a reply in hours, that's value. I have ordered his next book, "The Complete Guide to Day Trading Stock". Can't wait. I cannot see how anyone (who is not a beginner) would not benefit from this book.

As a Foreign Currency Dealer, I was NOT helped from this book at all! Actually the title is misleading since he does NOT concentrate on FX, he only shows some graph examples using FX crosses instead of stocks... The author just refers to a lot of TA indicators only reviewing their typical Buy and Sell signals that are written in every TA book, and furthermore the sections are very bad structured. Really very very disappointed!!!

I have had a measurable improvement in my profitability since reading "Technical Analysis Applications in the Global Currency Markets."
Although I have traded currencies for nearly seven years, I've never had the opportunity to systematically train in charting. Adding insult to injury, I listened many times to the "expert advice" of some ill-prepared reporters, who deliver opinions devoid of information. Needless to say, I lost money in several instances.
What "Technical Analysis Applications in the Global Currency Markets" brings to the table is a complete and systematic set of tools that will enrich every trader's arsenal. It's been working for me well consistently. It's hard to believe that I missed so many opportunities in the past.
There are many technical books out there. But I am a currency trader, and I'd rather see examples in FX, without the bias of "buy-and-hold" that you see in most other books that focus on equities. Besides, with the way they are going, who wants to trade equities, anyway?
I learned a lot from this book, and I feel confident that I can always go back to it to refresh my knowledge. Frankly, a lot of candlestick terms were at best fuzzy before reading is book. Now, I am fully confident in my understanding, and this translates in increased profitability.

I traded FX for 15 years in major banks in New York and London and I now have a retail FX firm. I found "Technical Analysis Applications in the Global Currency Markets" to be an excellent review for myself and a vital training tool for my traders.
In a short period of time junior traders drastically improved their knowledge and, more importantly, performance. At the end of the day, all that counts is a decent profit.
I found the clear structure and complete coverage to be big assets, particularly in a market devoid of consolidated research. In fact, this is the only technical analysis book on foreign exchange that I know of.
Junior traders were very pleased with the excellent explanations, diagrams and real-life examples in this updated edition. In particular, they found trend analysis, candlesticks, and point-and-figure charts to be consistent profit boosters.
The clear explanation of the benefits of moving averages and of the entry/exit points is valuable as well. Most recetly, these ntry/exit applications worked wonderfully for both the euro and the yen.
I strongly recommend "Technical Analysis Applications in the Global Currency Markets" to anyone who toils in the volatile currency markets.

This book is almost as good as Natenberg, and much better than McMillan, Schaffers, and Fontanills. Although it is about options on futures, most of the strategies discussed are applicable to stock options as well.

A good choice for stock option investors despite it mentioning commmodities. This book will overwhelm a beginner, who should start with Charles Caes' great "Tools of the Bear" (which works for bull and bear markets). Far superior to George Fontanills. Caplan is creative, he writes well and gives the studious reader many important tips. I made two pages of notes from this book. With even a little experience, an options investor will truly ascend to a higher level of knowledge and trading mastery with this book.

I don't receive his newsletter, I haven't been to any of his seminars and I don't trade with his brokerage. That being said, this book is outstanding in teaching non-complicated option strategies to traders who want to receive an "Edge" in trading. I have been trading futures for 7 years now, and have recently implemented options into my toolbag of strategies. So far, I've made at least 20 times what I paid for this book. You do though, must understand the futures market first. Trying to read this book, before understanding futures in general, will leave you in a daze. In contrast, there are many books who over-do option strategies by trying to explain how they came up with different strategies by using complex mathematical solutions and explaining how these solutions can make you money. If you think your confused reading this book, wait till you read one of those kinds of books! Good Luck everyone

I really liked this book, but I had to ignore significant portions of it to do so. If you parse the new age inspired psychological section and the tepid discussion of technical indicators that are anecdotal in nature and unsupported by research (I have been spoiled by "trading classic chart patterns" and "practical speculation"), then you might like it too. While it may be unfair to compare this book to the others since this book predates them, I will be forever testing what I read by those standards.

I really value his anecdotal explanation of what he did as a market maker and how he traded. I think there is real value to know the mind of the market makers that have to make a living in the market everyday by accepting risk. If you can rework your trading to trade WITH the order flow that market makers have on their desk, it will be a much easier ride. Obviously, there is no way for a third party to exactly know what is on a market makers desk, it may be interpolated from their actions. This book provides a perspective that I have not found in other trading books.

I think I've read most of the books on daytrading out there. Too bad, I could have read just this one along with perhaps John Murphy's "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets" and Velez and Capra's "Tools and Tactics for the Master Day Trader".

Josh Lukeman very unselfishly shares his valuable insight of the daytrading game. Imagine how powerful your trading would be if your last job was being a market maker for MSCO. Lukeman gives you that insight. Obviously, a few of the reviewers above didn't "get it" because they were too busy looking for a simple solution to their trading woes to support their beliefs that someone else (the market maker) is to blame for their losses.

If you're mature enough to accept responsibility for your trading, this book will give you the edge.

Of all the books I've read in the last year or so, "The Market Maker's Edge" is one of the best, if not the best. It contains specifics on how to trade, not just mechanics (e.g., buy when you see this or sell when you see that...) but reasons why. As most traders learn, there are two sides to every trade. This book explains the psychology at play on both sides.

There are other good books, such as Tony Oz's. But unlike Tony Oz, this book is a different perspective. Where most give generalizations, this book gives specifics.

Though fairly easy to read, I would not recommend this book as an introduction to trading. Otherwise, it is a "must read".

This uneven collection points up a lot of what was going wrong for Bruce Sterling in the 1990s: an overconfidence in his own ability to have his finger on the pulse and sometimes seemingly superficial understanding of other cultures replacing in-depth research.

This is at its worst in stories like 'The Littlest Jackal', set largely in the Aland Islands between Finland and Sweden - I've been there, and he just seems to use the islands as an exotic locale without any real understanding of the culture or geography. This story also features the return of Leggy Starlitz, the shady gun-for-hire of several stories in Globalhead, Sterling's previous and equally uneven collection. Unfortunately where in those stories he was amusing, here he has out-stayed his welcome and become tedious. I know these stories are an ironic riff on the old cyberpunk assassin theme and the superficiality is probably intended, but still - I don't think it works.

Also lightweight is Sacred Cow, which has a great concept (Bollywood film-makers come to Britain to take advantage of cheap labour in a country devastated by mad cow disease), but which largely fails to deliver more than a few cheap laughs. The title character of Deep Eddy (who gets a mention in a couple of other tales) is another of those irritating know-it-alls that Sterlings seems to specialise in at present. Will the geeks inherit the earth? Perhaps he's right, but it doesn't make for interesting characterisation here. Neil Stephenson does this a lot more effectively.

However, there are some really good stories in this collection.

I've lived in Japan, the setting for Maneki Neko, which in this context appears to suffer from the same faults as the lesser stories in demonstrating no more than a passing grasp of the culture in which it is set. However, having thought about this more, I realised that when I first read this story when it was published in F&SF's 'best of' collection, I really enjoyed its subtleties and humour (like many in that fine collection), and indeed its Japaneseness. Perhaps this time I reread it via Leggy Starlitz instead!

The long Bicycle Repairman and Taklamakan, set in the same world as Deep Eddy, are also better, the former a fairly gritty urban tale in a set amongst techie squatters, the latter a effectively dusty and atmospheric tale of some of the same foreign techs and spaceships in central Asia. I also enjoyed the wobbly and wonky Big Jelly which is at least partly down to lunatic collaborator Rudy Rucker's all-round obsession with jellyfish!

Sterling started to return to form with the novel, Holy Fire, but for fans of short fiction I suggest going back to his first satisfyingly varied collection, Crystal Express, which featured both early cyberpunk and more tradtional space-and-aliens sci-fi done equally well.

Overall this collection suggests that Sterling isn't putting as much effort into his short fiction as he used to, but there are very few writers who start off writing short stories who continue to do them as well or as often as their careers progress. While there are some really worthwhile pieces in here, my reading of them at least was unfortunately coloured by the not so great ones.

This collection contains seven stories, all previously published in magazines between 1993 and 1998. One story, "Big Jelly" was co-authored with Rudy Rucker.

I liked this anthology a lot despite the fact that a couple of the stories were rather weak. Some of the stories seem to have been written by extrapolating current events into the future and these, like "The Littlest Jackal" are the weakest in the collection. Also, in that story, the author mis-places Helsinki north of the Arctic circle and so he has the sun not setting in the summer, that was just sloppy writing. The stories such as "Maneki Neko" (my favourite) and the "Deep Eddy" series, that extrapolate technology are the ones that make the book worth while. In these, Sterling's wry view of the way that technology might change our world is both thought provoking and funny.

The last three stories are all set in the same world and they follow the largely unrelated exploits of a group of people living on the edge of a highly technological society. I felt as though the author was taking some of the people that he met while writing "The Hacker Crackdown" and then dropping them into the middle of the 21st century. These are three great stories.

Bruce Sterling rose to prominence in the 1980s as the master visionary and literary theorist of the cyberpunk movement. Although he has not left cyberpunk's sensibility behind, his newer fiction incorporates a wider range of themes, philosophical concepts, and just plain fun which is immediately engaging and entertaining as well as intellectually satisfying.

The best of Sterling's fiction- and "A Good Old-Fashioned Future" definitely belongs in that category- extrapolates current events and trends into the near future, then gives them a baroque twist. Here, Sterling's combination of a mad-cow disease epidemic and the rise of Indian cinema combine to make "Sacred Cow" a darkly humorous exploration of reverse colonialism. Likewise, cultural warfare- whether between differing intellectual movements, government and squatting entrepreneurs, or ethnic minorities against their own state and each other- invests and links the three last stories in the book in a progression that is as intricate as it is involving.

It's not all Bollywood and literary theory, though- Sterling loyalists will be pleased with the return of his irrepressible outlaw Leggy Starlitz. Scheming to free a group of islands from Danish control in order to set up a money-laundry, Starlitz's efforts are as amusing as they are, always, ultimately futile.

All in all, this collection is excellently balanced between the foreboding and the comic, the earnest and the absurd, and it's a must-have both for Sterling fans and those who just want to know how good science fiction can be.