Futures-market

I won't waste time with this.....

See my review of his book "Point and Figure Charting: The Essential Application for Forecasting and Tracking Market Prices"

This is one of four books by Tommy and his team. Thay have a logical, organized method for investing that does indeed work.
The best money you can spend is to either learn this method yourself or find an investment consultant who uses this method.

Honestly, there are not too many books in the personal investing genre that we'd recommend for serious investment advice. But if you're a serious investor considering a venture into short-term trading (formerly known as day-trading), you'll benefit from the wisdom, mind-boggling detail and dizzying array of charts presented here. Tom Dorsey likens good investment advice to a sports playbook that a coach can follow through the twists and turns of the game. The plays and strategies that they outline will be valuable for novices, but we [...] figure that they will challenge trading veterans as well. You need to do some homework (like following the indices and making charts) to work with this book. Dorsey and crew urge you to learn stock-market basics, govern your emotions, understand the psychology that drives investors and avoid common mistakes, like investing based on trends and hot tips. And, don't mind their sports jargon; it's just a framework to make the uninitiated feel comfortable.

The author does a fine job of presenting his system, however, he forgets to explain how he goes about his analysis. A comprehensive book would inform the reader how the author conducts analysis. Besides, one would expect for the price of the publication, a print date of Jan 2001 may offer an updated version of the original print: no luck. Much of the print dedicated to computer application uses old Lotus language - it is clear this edition could care less about users in Jan 2001 - it also seems to pass over the 90s as well. In all, it seems the author presents his notes on a system of looking for cycles, but the path is not clear and the guide not up to date. I am a commodity hedger and I find little use with book.

The Book has detailed explanations and examples of futures trading techniques and a lot technical analysis. One of the few forecasting books that is not lost in mathematics . The spread sheet examples purred like a kitten in excel. This in turn can be used to judge the significance of cycles or trends. The spread sheet are a great help to sort and mange data to see what you are really looking at. Easy to follow real world examples. It's the kind of book you wish for in MBA classes but never seem to see

The first part of this book details the advantages of commodity speculation as a business (no employees, low overhead, don't have to deal with customers etc.) Afterwards many forms or technical analysis are discussed. eg, chart formations, trading patterns (lindahl, three in a row, gaps). Examples of daily weekly monthly time periods are given. Volume, open interest, financial reports ( committment of traders) are also given. Support lines, seasonal cycles, secular cycles are also given. To sum it up, many systems are combined. The result is a huge number of support, trend lines, and opinions of which the price could go. This books covers many things in a very readable style, (eg. if you..." trade with out stop losses, you'll end up in the lillies") . It gives explantion, shows successful examples of something working, but gives no unifying technique. The reader is left with a bunch of ways to do technical analysis, but with more questions than he started with

Mr.Alexander uses this book to inundate investors with so much information, I am quite sure he scares away inexperienced futures investors.

There are a lot of technical analysis tools that you have to decipher. I also did not like his analogy of "commodities investing" as a business. I have been involved with futures as an investor and an author for 11 years. This statement of it being the perfect business sells false hopes to the new futures investor.

Futures and Options are investments, you can't depend on them for your livelihood.

The book is based on ex post iteration of events and investment strategies, which lacks the necessary foundation of macroeconomic introduction. It requires extensive knowledge of macroeconomics and finance in order to grasp (or digest) what the ideas behind strategies are. Clearly not for a beginner but I would not recommend it for an experienced fund manager at all. I found most of the examples and strategies highly simple.

Feeling brave? If you are, crack Burstein's book and have a look at how some serious big-time money works. Of course, by defintion this is not the majority of market participants so this is not a "popular" read.

But scientific truth, like a successful P&L statement, is not democratic. Either it makes money or it does not. And if does, you can bet that a few will get it right but most won't.

As an arbitrageur, Burstien's book is an excellent unfair advantage to those who are able to heed its message.

Christopher MAY - author Nonlinear Pricing

Trades off cycle analysis and various indicators (detrended, money flow, open interest) and divergences. I can't say I will be using any of the methods in this book , but it is written well and explained well .. and for that it gets another star.

Has developed an oscillator which factors in volume to the oscillator equations. It is very good at picking short term tops and bottoms. He has also defined a stop point that gets taken out only when price has reversed prematurely. I have made money with this but I believe you must study it for awhile to be successful.

Before I read this book I had never heard of Art Bell or Whitley Striber. Therefore, as a scientist, I read this book with an open mind. The book addresses the intriguing and controversial hypothesis that alterations in the flow of the North Atlantic Current could have sudden and violent cataclysmic effects on global weather patterns. This is such an intriguing topic that it's unfortunate it wasn't addressed by someone like Bill Bryson or Richard Rhodes, who would have given the topic a much more analytical and scientific treatment. In my opinion, Striber and Bell have hijacked the topic of potential weather-related global cataclysm, and used it as a vehicle to persuade the reader that advanced civilizations once existed on our planet and were lost in a violent climatic upheaval. They present legitimate scientific observations and as-yet unexplained phenomena (much of it unrelated to the topic of global climate) and casually link them to some of the more fanatastic claims of pseudoscience. This book is worth reading for entertainment, but the reader should definitely keep in mind the saying "you shouldn't believe everything you read". The bottom line is this book is long on pseudoscience and speculations (more than a few of them outrageous) and short on substantial scientific information.

Now that Y2K has come and gone, there's nothing to worry about -- right? Wrong, say radio talkshow host Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, author of alien-encounter bestsellers "Communion" and "Confirmation." Unless you have an unlimited supply of food and fuel and don't mind the prospect of shoveling 50 feet of snow from your driveway, you'll want to read "The Coming Global Superstorm." In it, the two argue the current global warming could actually trigger a new ice age by melting the polar ice caps and changing the course of warm ocean currents that control weather from Seattle to Stockholm. The pair intersperse their non-fiction account of what is happening with an engrossing fictional tale told through the eyes of a National Weather Service employee. He quietly moves his family to Texas while Europe and the northern United States are pretty much plunged into weather-related anarchy -- that is, the parts that survive. As a literary work, this isn't exactly Shakespeare. But it isn't intended to be. Citing everything to mainstream press accounts to scientific journals throughout their narrative, the two authors dare doubters to go to their sources and see the raw data for themselves. As a news reporter for a Midwestern daily, I have double-checked many of their sources for an upcoming article -- and I am frightened.

The Coming Global Superstorm is a wonderful Non-Fiction Book that explains many scenarios about our ever changing world that we live in and also our dire future. I highly recommed reading this as the film that was based on the book The Day After Tomorrow hits theatres this Memorial Day.

Sadly snake oil wins over real value once again. This is very seductive proposition but if you had applied it to real long term systems over the past year you would be BROKE.

All of the books in the "also read this" list are much better. Go there to preserve your capital.

Limited number of books on Money Management. This is destined to become a classic. Does an excellent job of surveying other money management approaches (Optimal "f", Secure "f", Martingale, Anti-Martingale, etc.) before plugging his favorite: Fixed Ratio. His arguments are persuasive.

Jones does an excellent job distinguishing between money management and risk management.

He does an excellent job of addressing and often dismissing irrelevant factors that often confuse the money management discussion. An example - Risk Of Ruin: Jones writes: "Basically my reaction is 'who cares!' Risk of ruin has absolutely zero practical application in trading."

A couple "wishes" -- Jones favors "simulation" runs to evaluate different money management approaches presented as spreadsheet print outs. I think with a little work, some of these examples could have been made a little clearer, and a little more interesting (i.e. display graphically?). But perhaps that is a good exercise for the reader?

Another "wish": provide more information on available software -- except maybe it isn't available?? Jones mentions, only briefly, but at least twice, a software program he developed that appears to help one utilize the Fixed Ratio trading method. There is no more information on this, no web site, no nothing?? I've heard of people "over-hyping" their products, but Jones goes to the opposite extreme and barely mentions it??!! This might be helpful to those of us interested in pursuing his methods further.

All in all, an EXCELLENT book!!

After meeting and talking with Ryan Jones at OmegaWorld conference in Vegas in 1999, and after he convinced me I needed his book(yeah right!), I bought it...and he was right, I do need this book. To correct you clowns who did negative reviews on this book claiming it was not a good trading 'method' or 'you can find the same thing in a probability book', YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON HERE. This book is not a trading system; it is a method for MONEY MANAGEMENT. If you don't know the difference between the two, then go back to school. This book shows you that trade size does make a huge difference in your day-to-day trading. It keeps you immune from annihilation. Thank you, Ryan; and thank you Larry Williams, and Murray Ruggerio, and all the others who spend countless hours helping us pros understand the nuances of trading equities. It's a good book, ladies and gentlemen. If you're serious about trading, then buy it!

Do not waste your time reading Ralph J. Acampora's book. It is another way Mr. Acampora is trying to make money is today's world. When will he have enough?

I read a lot of investment material and this is the first time I have heard of the concept of a "mega-market". Mr. Acampora provides interesting comparisons to prior mega-markets with very brief lessons in technical analysis. He has made a boring subject interesting and uses a lot of personal examples. I think it takes guts to go out on a limb to highlight a phenomenon and to have in print that you predict that this bull market will run through 2011. This is even more corageous considering he finished this book during the present market turmoil. I don't find this to be vanity but more of a desire to share his knowledge with others. You are not going to learn all the details of technical analysis, but reading his book gave me the confidence to contiue investing in this bear market.

Unlike several current books about the stock market that I've read, Mr. Acampora chooses not to make incredible Dow predictions but rather presents an excellent historical and technical argument for investor optimism. He explains the social and technology backdrop of prior robust market eras and shows the reader why everything is in place for a grand future. Bear markets and the periodic deflation of speculation are a natural occurence in the course of a bull mega-market. If anything, this book will build your confidence as a long term investor and support a committment to stay in the market during the current severe stock correction. Mr. Acampora addresses the current market and puts it in a historical context and that I found very informative. The book is very well written and I have no doubt this is due to the collaboration with Michael D'Antonio who put his Pulitzer Prize winning writing skills to work here. You don't have to learn much technical analysis to enjoy this book. Mr. Acampora makes a solid and easily understood case for it but, in my mind, his inate integrity, sense of history, and long experience find an intuitive expression through that venue. At first I was going to rate this book a 4 but after some thought upgraded to a 5 because the book's understated style truely provides a thoughtful and informative experience that will benefit the investor. Highly recommended.

I like this book because it uses some similar methods that I already incorporate into my trade. Using Elliot Wave to form a possible pattern in the near future and create a bias , and then using an indicator as a filter for an allowance of trade ("permission"). Kase develops a number of oscillators, stop variation and so forth that are custom to her and requires you to buy it from her webpage . That part is a bit annoying, especially when I doubt the indicators are any less useless than all the others out there. Nevertheless, this is a decent effort by a profitable trader and that alone is reason to take a look at it.

I ordered this book and then devoured it twice. I disagree with other inputs that the book does not provide details for the indicators. Ms. Kase is extremely open in disclosing the math and logic behind her technical indicators and her overall approach to the markets via statistics. With little study, one can easily derive her mathematical approach. The chapter explaining standard deviations was worth the price of the book alone. Having taken a post-graduate level statistics class, I found her explanation of standard deviations and statistics to be the best I've ever read to explain the math. You do not need to be a math whiz to understand her approach because of the easy-to-understand explanations. If you trade using standard deviations, this is a "must-read" book.

For any trader looking for real concrete answers and positive direction in technical analysis, this is the book to read! Ms. Kase is able to break down the main elements of the markets into easy to understand terms and logically explains how and why her approach and methods work.

Her impressive successful background and experience cannot be disputed; this shows in her work. There are many weak "black box" systems for sale out there - this is not one of them. The Kase indicators and methods to trading in the markets are not limited to specific periods in time, nor are they limited to specific markets; this is the fundamental basis for their solidity and amazing accuracy.

Her "Dev-Stop" and "PeakOscillator" are excellent tools! I highly recommend this book and the fine work of Ms. Kase to any trader serious about trading using technical indicators.

I guess I'm spoiled by Martin Schwartz's excellent book Pit Bull. I was expecting a trader's autobiography something along the same line with The Day Trader, but what I got was the first 130 pages of Borsellino talking about what a tough guy he is and about his mafioso father. After that he dips into a high-level discussion of the changes to the commodities and NASDAQ exchanges over the years. There is virtually no mention of trading technique or psychology, outside of the constant tough guy braggadocio, which is pretty sad to hear from a 40-year-old guy. And definitely don't buy it if you're looking for trading advice or techniques. There is none to be found. If you want a nice biographical read about a trader, read Pit Bull or Reminiscences of a Stock Operator instead. Borsellino simply doesn't write well enough to keep this one interesting. The story wanders around too much and is too repetitious.

While the title has disappointed some by leading one to think that this book contains the secret strategies of a successful day trader (it does not), I found this book to be perfectly appropriate for teaching everyone about an often overlooked concept and the one thing that kept him in the trading game: heart.

Through the lens of this notion, Borsellino gives folks a first-hand look of what it takes to make money in the S&P futures pits of the Chicago Merc. Much more than that, "Big Italy" gives you a no-holds-barred account of his humble beginnings and some of his more interesting episodes as a day trader on the Merc. The best story I ever read was about how he was able to earn over $1.3 million dollars on one trade...in about 1 minute! If you want to see what its like to be on the other side of the daytrading fence (the very profitable side) take a look at Borsellio's "The Day Trader". Also useful is an interview he gives in "The Best: TradingMarkets.com Conversations With Top Traders". There he discussed order flow and support and resistance from a pit trader and a pc-based traders point of view. Some useful nuggets there.

The book is not a tech how to book but in all fairness the auther doesn't claim it as one. This book is more of an autobiography and in that category it is a 5. The auther brags about himself at times but anyone who is that successful has a right too. Excellent read well worth the time!