Futures-market

There are some new ideas about indicators in this book. I haven't test whether they can beat the old indicators. The authors also could not give such a test. But if you are a creative technician, you can learn how to create new indicators yourself. I did it. It was an interesting process but might not be profitable! It would be better if this book could have a CDROM that contains all the formula in Metastock, Excel or Tradestation formats.

This book gave me some new ideas about TA indicators. Although they may not beat all those old indicators, it is still useful to look at TA from other angles.

The technical indicators presented here seem to provide one with better tools that he would normally obtain from the over-used an beated indicators sold on the market today. However, it is not a book where you can just read it any apply the techniques straight away. You will need to obtain the necessary programming skills or buy ready-made programs with these indicators. As such the book is more of a reference and explanatory nature rather thanl one where you can just start applying techniques immediately after you have finished reading it.

Where work the trading system explained in this book???
Don't loose your money and time reading this book

When I first started trading, the concepts in this book were way beyond me.
I tried the LSS system and it didn't work.
Some 14 years later (February 2004), this book is working for me.
Not LSS, but the concepts. They are aimed at the type of market we have right now.
The concepts come from Taylor who documented a three day cycle in the 1960's.
This book describes Angell's spin on it.

George Angell constantly produces hits when it comes to futures investing. From his proprietary LSS system to his down to earth attitude he has my complete professional courtesy.

His book opens the eyes of the average investor and let's it be known that futures are not one dimensional. You have multiple strategies and tools at your disposal to help you succeed. One of those tools is hedging. ... This is a must have book for the novice futures trader.

Todd's book should be in every beginner's library at home because of its detailed description of each commodity in detail and where to get futher reference info. Also, it introduces and explains what commodities are all about in an easy-to-read format suited for 8th grade level reading. Perfect!

With these good points, it does however to skim over several important issues. First of these is actual trading techniques; Todd gives just a few examples of techniques like call spreads and triangle formations, but wished he went on... Second, he gives little, next to no info on money management leaving the reader knowing that while it is important, how do we do it??? And thirdly, an area that many futures how-to books seem to avoid is price forecasting. True, we can't trade the past and past performances are only statements of what happened with prices. Ok, now where do we go from here?? We sort of need suggestions or tools to predict the market and with a good degree of accuracy. This causes the reader to form one of 3 dangerous trading habits: Guessing the markets, trading at random without a plan and/or doing nothing because the trader is confused. Sure, the readers are taught the basics so that they can call their broker to say "Buy one July Porkbelly at 68" to place a trade, should they be selling instead of buying or should they have a virtue of patience???

Strategy and money management are the heart of successful commodity trading...Readers should then be shown what to do and how to do it. Otherwise, this book will fall into the realm of "Information without application."

The book is really basic in nature and tries to cover what the title conveys. I am disappointed that the math involved in most futures and options is not even touched upon (it could have been even without calculus). There are plenty of other books out there that do a much better job in introducing futures with math.

This is an excellent book that I recommend to anyone just getting started in learning about futures. The author writes in wonderful detail, and makes it easy for a person to understand the basics of the futures markets. This book is *the* place to start - it's a must read for beginners.

Kaufman is one of my favorite author. But in this book he seems to have an idea that stop loss is not a good thing! I really cannot agree with him. Except this point the book is quite good. But the other book by the same author contains similar contents. I would perfer the later.

The person who said that Kaufman does not believe in stop losses is quite INCORRECT. The whole purpose of this book is to weigh a stop loss against a possible incorrectly placed volatile sale.
If anyone trades with a regular basis they know the horror of being 'stopped out' because of volatile price swings. Kaufman helps by correclty analyzing the benefits of stops vs losses showing how mechanized systems for stops have their own pitfalls.

Kaufman's whole treatise on RISK is really worth the price of the book. Understanding risk and it's effect on your psychology is an important and very valuable treatise. Kaufman does a very good job on the subject. Also of benefit, is the Adaptive Moving Average algorithm. While this is also part of Metastock
having the formula is invaluable for those of us who want to modify it.

The weakest part is the computerized system analysis at the end is old and rather simplistic; I would not recommend it. Some of the ideas are interesting but Pardo's book is much much better.

This was a good read on trading methodology and system development. The best concept is that of the "unable" trade, which is where your system gives a buy signal but you can not get your order filled. This is a double edged sword in that you would get filled on trades where a buy was signaled, but the trade results in a loss and not on trades that would have been highly profitable. The end result is hypothetical returns that are higher than they should be. Probably why so many successful paper systems fail when applied.

Now, aside from the trading methodology which is well written, there is a lot and I mean a lot of Programming Language in the text. I don't want to take away from the concepts which were great, but if you are not planning on writing a computerized trading program you may want to search elsewhere. On the other hand, if you are working on a "Black Box" trading system, I would highly recommend this text.

Mr.Schwager is intensely passionate about the markets. This comes through in his thorough analysis of the markets. He has no problem dissecting the fundamental and technical aspects of the market as easily as Michelangelo would paint the Sistine Chapel. His style is heavily influenced by statistics and high level mathematics. His entire voice is centered around the belief that the market can be predicted through analysis of the numbers. Unfortunately, for most people that is not the case. It also seems not to be the case for Mr.Schwager as well, since he admits in his book that he is not a good trader.

That being said, his book is a great reference tool that gets the average trader to stretch himself mentally and look at the markets in a different way. This book ... can be invaluable for the trader that is simply looking for a new perspective besides simply "flags", "candlesticks", and "elliot waves".

Schwager's textbooks while not specifically about spreads are comprehensive and complete about futures. This book has a small section about trading commodity futures spreads.

This book could be renamed as "The Mathematics of Trading". The traget readers are traders who use lots of Mathematics and Statistics.

The experience of Schwager helped me a lot. He said he was good in analysis but not trading. Many people, including me, thought Mathematics, Statistics and Economics were essential for good trading. So they went to college, studied hard, got a degree and hope they could make money in the market. This simply never happen! Otherwise everyone should got a PhD before trading. You still need to develop a method or system. But what is vital is to control your ego. Admit mistakes quickly. This was the most interesting and useful conclusion that I got from Schwager.

This book was still very good, and is a good timeline novel, but it is not the best of the three in the series. The book makes a good effort with the Scheenag, but the end falls apart in a strange cliffhanger.

For instance, the back cover blurb, while still clearly inaccurate, isn't quite as blatently inaccurate as was the blurb on the back of "Past Tense", the first book of the series. For another thing, while still ending on a cliffhanger, this book at least does us the courtesy of doing so AFTER resolving a major plot point. And the writing is just as good as it was in the first book of the series, which is saying quite a bit.

Unfortunately, while this book comes closer than book one did to having an actual ending, it has no beginning; one could not reasonably expect to enjoy this book if one hadn't read book one of the series, so it still can't stand alone. So while the series is well worth reading, I cannot recommend this book by itself. It is a story fragment, and can only be read as part of a trilogy.

The second book in L.A.Graf's "Janus Gate" trilogy is an exciting adventure which builds on the ground work laid in book one. This time there is more of a science fiction edge, as the true nature of the Janus gate mechanism is revealed, and just how out-of-sync the time stream now is becomes apparent. The future adventure with Sulu and an older Chekov fighting the Gorn is an excellent idea, and the fact that the author found a new and interesting way to use established characters and aliens from the original series speaks volumes of her ability as a writer. The ending too manages to throw in another curve to the story with the arrival of the mysterious "Shechenag", and the reader can't help but be drawn in to the next book. For any other fans who liked this story I would also like to recommend "Killing Time" by Della Van Hise published in July 1985 (Star Trek collection #24), which features an excellent story where Romulans have altered time creating a distorted future in which Spock is an embattled starship captain, and Kirk is a bitter ensign. As for this book, it is another enjoyable effort from Graf, even better than the first one.

This book was written in '96 and as such, Easy Language could have been included since it was available then. The system requires high maintenance observation (in 1 minute, 5 minute, 15 minute and 60 minute charts in each future discussed) that would require programming assistance in the background. NB Another reviewer states he has programmed this in ELA & offers his email address.

There are many charts which take up half of the book, but since most of the time the chart being referenced in the text is on another page, it's a hassle to jump back and forth. The writing style could cure insomnia.

As in Larry Williams' daytrading book, this book would have benefitted greatly by inclusion of Performance Reports with Profit Factors, ROI, consecutive losers and the like. In fairness to the author, he provides the results of all trades in a month period for the different time periods (1-minute through 60-minutes) for various futures including the DM. These could have been enhanced with profit targets, it was surprising to see better than potential $1000+ trades allowed to turn into losers.

Once the single system was explained, the various futures could have been presented with 1 time frame Performance Report and the best value, on successive pages.

Unfortunately since Barnes limited himself to 1 month of trades, there is insufficient information on those time frames greater than 1 or 5 minute charts, to determine the validity of the system. One needs a minimum of 30 samples and in many instances there are only 3 trades for the time period presented.

Better editing would have enhanced the value of this book in making it more comprehensible and capable of the system being confirmed as being viable.

I used the system outlined in the book to develop a highly successful longer term system that makes very good returns with low drawdowns. It also recovers very quickly from losses. Enough said!

VERY HELPFULL BOOK FOR THE NOVICE. QUICK DELIVERY

The problem with this book is that it adresses too many points, providing little or no detail on each of them. All the book does is merely tell you there is something like Fundamental Analysis, Technical Analysis, etc., but it is too shallow to really learn something useful about all these fields.

Personally, I ordered this book because I wanted to learn more about the inner workings and the behind-the-scenes aspect of the futures markets. However, despite the title, the book offers very little information about how the Futures markets actually work.

There is a lot of information here. It can be a little overwhelming, but the complete details that Mr.Bernstein gives on the futures market are absolutely accurate. He really knows how to bring the complexity of futures trading to the masses.

I am a 11 year veteran of the futures market, and an author of three futures investing books, but I still find myself referencing back to some of Mr. Bernstein's books, this one included.

"How The Futures Markets Work" is precise, honest, and informative. Consistent with other works by Jake Bernstein, this book is objective: written solely to educate and inform the reader.

This book does not attempt to convince an unsuspecting or uninformed reader to trade futures. Nor does it form an opinion about whether investment in the futures markets is "good" or "bad". Instead, it arms the reader with enough information to make an informed, intelligent decision about whether or not to trade futures.

This is a textbook. It provides an objective, base-level understanding of the futures markets, including: the history of the futures contract, the purpose of the Futures Exchange, how to chose a broker, market forces affecting futures prices, and trading strategies. You will not necessarily be able to jump right into futures trading after reading this book, but you will have acquired a firm foundation on which to become more informed should you wish to do so.

This book works towards leveling the playing field in the investment community, something much needed. Void of marketing and sales hype, this book provides a refreshing, candid, and honest description of what should be expected from trading futures, both from the market and from you as a futures trader.

The most important chapter in this book is chapter 9: "The Psychology of Investing". Mr. Bernstein makes it very clear, there is no quick way to achieving success as a futures trader and that success will most like be achieved based not on our trading system but rather by our ability - as people - to properly implement our trading system. This chapter alone makes the book a worthwhile purchase.

If you like this sort of thing sure go for it. I don't but well written

This book gets a 4 stars rating because of its expensive price (the book is only 220 pages and full of empty spaces). But, price is always subjective. You may treat it as the cost of your education.

Anyway, what makes this book so very valuable is the fact that it is easy to read, clear, definitive, and yes it has so many valuable information on what parameters to use for each indicator. How many of you left confused on what parameters should be used? This book will definitely clear away the clouds in your mind.

LeBeau has done extensive research on indicators such as ADX and his insights on other popular indicators are extremely valuable.

The title may be slightly misleading because bulk of the contents is explaining each technical indicator (120 pages), while only 45 pages on explaining how to build a trading system. Yet, it is clear and concise.

The final Chapter is also valuable. It deals with 12 Day Trading systems that the author has selectively chosen out of all day trading ideas he has or has received from other great traders.

I only discoverd this pretty old book recently. I am suprised to find there are quite a lot of trading tips. What make this book stands out of the crowd is the tips were very concrete and practical. The discussions about exit and stop loss are parcticular good. Many other books just said cut the loses quick. How quick? When? This book gives you some hints. The authors also give some tricks in using indicators which I hope I could know earlier.

The book contains a wealth of practical information however there are errors in the mathematical formulas, dates and etc. This is most frustrating from a reader point of view and dampened the confidence in the material presented. However, it is relatively a easy read for general understanding of the money and FX markets. I hope the author does a more thorough check in the future edition in order to do this book justice.

This is a great practical book for the beginners and intermediate people in the market. When I started in the market as a business analyst, with no prior experience, it was a confused world of trading. After reading this book, things make much more sense. In addition, the book explains brief analytics on how to price and when and why certain instruments will be used for trading. It is geared towards trading. Refer to other books if you are more interested in middle/back office functionality (like settlements, P&L calc, risk management etc.)

Many a times, trainers in the banking industry find it very difficult to teach complex subjects like foreign exchange and money markets to relatively junior guys. This book will prove to be of great help to those trainers. Probably the first ever attempt in this subject.( Luca's text book can easily be replaced by this book just because of its excellant padagogy). Hope other titles advertised by RFT will also become available soon, specially the one on Risk Management.