Momentum

I think this book is targeted towards discretionary traders who are comfortable with trading indicators (MA, RSI, MACD, etc.), but unfamiliar with how to back test these indicators on historic data. If you want to back test your trading ideas in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, this book may be of interest to you. If you already know how to test systems on Trade Station or Super Charts, this book is probably too elementary.

This book is divided into two parts. Part I explains the theory of "Smart Momentum." Part II shows step-by-step how to implement it in Microsoft Excel. The nice thing about this book is that Part II parallels Part I on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

The book focuses on (a) indicator creation, (b) indicator selection, and (c) indicator combination. The logical development of a trading system proceeds as follows:

An equity curve shows cumulative dollars extracted from the market versus time. The "Smart Momentum Ratio" (SMR) summarizes an equity curve in a single number. (The author claims the Sharpe ratio, in and of itself, is not good enough.)

One can compare equity curves by comparing their respective SMRs. The better the equity curve, the larger the SMR.

Since an equity curve is the cumulative daily result of a trading indicator: The better the trading indicator, the larger the SMR.

A collection of one or more trading indicators comprises a trading system. Since a single indicator may fail under certain market conditions, it is desirable to build a trading system out of several uncorrelated indicators.

If one varies the parameters of a trading indicator, and its SMR stays relatively constant, then that indicator is said to be "robust." Indicators that contain SMR spikes (referred to as "Matterhorns") are not robust. Curve fitting is avoided by using several data windowing methods, which are briefly mentioned.

By the way, this book does not teach you how to use Microsoft Excel. It only gives you the Excel spreadsheet formulas to enter into spreadsheet cells (I did not test them to see if they were accurate). The techniques shown in this book are fine for tinkering in Excel, but to seriously create and analyze indicators the way the author suggests would take man-years in front of Excel. This may lead a person serious about developing trading systems into computer programming and optimization algorithms. For the latter approach, I recommend "The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies" by Katz and McCormick.

Because of the above reason, and the reasons that follow, I only gave the book 4 stars (with respect to its intended target audience):
Chapter 9 - Spreadsheet preliminaries) The author uses USDJPY data sampled at 6:00, 12:00, and 18:00 GMT, but does not tell where to acquire such data.
Chapter 11 - Indicator selection) The author tells how to find robust indicators, but does not give the Excel steps needed to generate the 3D charts used in companion chapter 4.
Chapter 12 - Indicator combination) Indicator correlation matrices are presented. The author says they are generated with the Excel "correl" function, but does not reveal what cell references to use.
Chapter 13 - Maintenance) Failing indicators are replaced with new ones on a frequent basis. In my opinion, this is not the signature of a robust trading strategy.

One of three short books by Landsberg on key skills for leaders and managers. The others are The Tao of Motivation and The Tao of Coaching. All three are notable for their directness and brevity and all provide an extremely useful guide to important skills. Each is written around a brief story about 'Alex', on his journey from manager to CEO, with each episode designed to illustrate some aspect of the coaching/motivation/leadership challenge. Each episode is followed by a two page summary of the particular skill needed to meet the challenge. Each book has a useful bibliography to guide the reader to more detail where desired and a suite of Appendices covering further details on key aspects of skill.
There is naturally some overlap between the books, but each is valuable in its own right and the set combine to provide a thoughtful, practical and readily referenced guide to the key elements in the human side of management and leadership.
The Tools of Leadership is written around a detailed exploration of the attitudes, skills and tools needed to be effective in building vision, inspiration and momentum and in balancing the use of these and the use of power.

The book is really like a chat, it doesn't bring anything deep. It almost don't bring any chart or any new technical analysis, and even their system suggestion is week. For instance, when they explain how to use volume to pick a stock, they even doesn't show a volume chart.
What makes the book more frustating is the way it's written, one may feels that it's missing something or the author is hidden something. Moreover they put some stupid dialogs to ilustrate some situations...

The book really lacks substance!

Thus, buy this book only if you want waste your money and doesn't have anything better to read.

Just finished the book and was very happy with the content. I enjoy trading books in general, but when I can pull one or two money making ideas out of a book, all the better. Ken Wolff posts for RealMoney.Com, and gives great ideas to his readers. The book elaborates on many of his methods like playing momentum both on the upside and the downside with a lot of clarity. More than that, he gives great pointers on keeping a journal of trades, measuring moves of stocks and watching the market..

A little history goes with my review, inthat Mr. Wolff also runs a trading room, (MTrader), which I traded in about a year after I began trading. After a short stay at MTrader, I left, simply because I believed that adhering to the patterned strategies of Wolff were a bit too involved and things had to be simpler and faster. That was a mistake and after about a year of alternating trading styles, different strategies, indicators, software, etc., I happened on Wolff's book and out of curiosity, ordered and read it.

Plainly stated, what moves stocks is news about what a stock has just done, is about to do or is expected to do and the relative expectations of the investors and traders focusing on that stock. Wolff has studied news related momentum for years and is what I would securely describe as a master of expectation and price movement potential. There are a number of successful traders out there who cut their teeth on his schooling...a few went on to try there own trade site.

The methods are plainly and simply explained and in themselves, not difficult. Perhaps because of this truth, others may dismiss it, however, if you read this book and think about it, you come to one glaring fact...and that is Mr. Wolff explains momentum trading methods that are based on logic of predictable reaction to news related momentum....there are no lagging indicators...complicated formulas...just logic.

The difficulty is the patience and discipline one needs to apply in adhering to and application of the information.

One more thing...I'm trading at MTrader again because with everything else I've tried and I believe I've tried about everything...I found no consistency...I was either burning-hot....or stumbling. Here, I have found consistency that anticipates what a stock will do based on it's news and the market/sector sentiment at that moment.

Highly recommend this read. I hesitate to state this, but would also suggest after reading the book, you try a week trial at the site to see what you read happening...it would be helpful. Or I suppose if you want to save some money, drop by the site for the trial, (it's free) and decide before you buy if it allmakes some sense to you...

Good Trading!

With respect to this book, I do agree that

1) momentum is a very important trading concept whilst MACD is a very useful oscillator type indicator to identify overbought and oversold situations, and thus change of s/t trend, a TA tool which helps traders not to buy high sell low, especially in a day trading environment.
2)the author had written a very easy reading book in a very friendly and understandable way.

However, I can hardly agree that:-

1) the author presented momentum as a surefire weapon in the highly volatile market and can be used alone
2) the author did keep it simple, but it's too simple all the way throughout the 180+ page content and he should lead the readers from simple concept to complicated application or even teach readers how to improve its accuracy with simultaneous usage of stochastics or RSI or...In fact, there are many examples/charts illustrated by the author which showed extended period of divergence with very unfavorable price moment that might have already kicked an investor out of his position, in case he/she did not have a strong brief on his/her position but by sheer reliance on MACD.

As a professional trader, I cant recommend this book to anybody. The quality of this is just so far below the author's own classic "Investment Quotient" which the author's strength (trading behavioral psychology) rests solidly upon.

this is a good book and well written. very easy to read and understand.

however, it comes across as too simple. the methods that are discussed here does not really give you the confidence that they are sufficient for you to trade properly.

another book by this author on the psychology part of trading, 'IQ the investors quotient', is a much better and strongly recommended read. in terms of market momentum, martin pring's 'trading with oscillators' is more useful, and just as easy to read.

This book offers a simple but robust method of trading on stockmarkets. The presence of many many (sometimes too many) charts makes it possible to read on the beach, not just behind the computer.
The Momentum Stock Selection method is good. Bernstein claims that you can use the method on intraday basis. This is true, but not in the same simple way as he shows in the book, it takes a lot more interpretation and experiments (on paper first is my advice!!).
His rules on do's and don'ts in trading are absolutely valuable and true, and funny to read of you have done all the don'ts already in the past.

I recently purchased this book to strengthen my momentum skills. Being somewhat new to TA, it is has came easy having a extensive computer background. I found Prings explanation on oscillators complete but lacks application to daytrading/investing. I met him at a recent show asking him pertinent questions as they apply to the market and trading and he replied...."I need to buy another book". This book is good on how oscillators are made....NOT HOW THEY ARE USED.

If you want an elpanation of how various oscillators are calculated and applied this is a good resource for active traders. The book contains some solid explanations of how to interpret divergences between an underlying security and oscillators. Additionally, several good points made for traders and investors.

Why three stars? Mr Pring's book was a very heavy dry read. There was very little comment on how he might have approaced these trades, or if he took them at all. There was a lot of reference to other people's work. Which is fine, but I look for two things in an investment book. The first is ideas that can help me be a better investor/trader, but the second is enjoyment.
Something like The Visual Investor (John Murphy) is just much more practical for all but die hard TA students.

You will find the KST formula in Chapter 7 on page 159. This is not a book on day trading. It is a book on momentum. It can be applied to all time frames like daily, weekly, and monthly. For day trading, you need to read a lot more books on day trading to prepare for that task. The KST is a superb indicator. It allows you to zero in on the maintrend. You know the addage, the trend is your frend. KST will show you if the trend is your frend before you put on your trade. Most traders who lose money trade against the main trend. With KST, you can make sure you are trading with the trend.

Mr. Pring does a superb job in a layman language as to how to interpret and use momentum. No other author does as a good job and most books will mislead you and cost you big losses as a result. Martin has it all when it comes to momentum!!

If you had used the method outlined in this book between January 15 and February 5 of 2004, before commissions you would have lost between $177.00 and $2703.00 under ideal conditions trading 100 shares every time a trade was appropriate. By "ideal conditions," I mean getting filled every time at exactly the price you wanted. Because this is not always a possibility, you would have lost more than this.

The loss of between $177.00 and $2703.00 indicated here represents the range from the best possible price on day 5 to the worst possible price on day 5 for each trade that would not have been stopped out.

Using Jeff Cooper's criteria, the only possible opening trades would have been to short PIXR @ 66.16 on Jan 15, buy ACH @ 73.00 on Jan 20, buy NTLI @ 68.24 on Jan 22, short PIXR @67.12, on Jan 22, buy NIHD @ 98.96 on Jan 23, buy NTLI @ 68.66 on Jan 23, short UNP @ 66.54 on Jan 23, buy NVEC @58.85 on Jan 26, short MTB @ 91.94 on Jan 27, short BUD @ 51.19 on Jan 28, buy RIMM @ 86.67 on Jan 30, buy MICC @ 71.95 on Jan 30, buy NFLX @ 73.09 on Jan 30, buy NVEC @ 57.06 on Jan 30, sell PIXR @ 64.94 on Feb 2, short KRI @ 76.48 on Feb 2 buy MICC @ 74.39 on Feb 2, buy 100 NTLI @ 67.03 on Feb 2, buy 100 NFLX @ 74.73 on Feb 2, sell KRI @ 75.85 on Feb 3, buy RIMM at 86.51 on Feb 5, and buy NFLX @ 72.15 on Feb 5.

The results that I have given here do not take into account the outcome of the second to last trade (buy RIMM @ 86.51 on Feb 5), since five trading days have not yet elapsed and the stock would not yet have been stopped out as of the time of this writing.

Acording to the methodology outlined in the book, one must only trade securities that are over $50.00 per share in price. Another stipulation is that the stock either have an ADX reading of 35 or higher, or, alternatively, that it have an IBD Relative Strength rating of 95 or higher for long positions. I chose the second alternative for this study, since it is easy to screen for these criteria using IBD's web site.

Jeff Cooper said that, for short positions, it is possible to drop the minimum price to $40.00, but I only used prices greater than $50.00, since he also said that the higher the price, the better the results would be.

Another criterion of the author's was that the 8-day Fast %K stochastic reading must be under 40% for long positions and over 60% for short positions. I calculated these stochastics using spreadsheets of prices downloaded from Yahoo. The formula that I used is the one provided at the end of the book's appendix.

Having pointed all of this out, I should also mention that I have no doubt that this method was working well when Jeff Cooper wrote about it. However, that was at a different time, and various market strategies might work for a while and then fade out, due in part to differing market conditions. (There is also the possibility that I have not selected a long enough time frame to yield a large enough sample for statistically significant results.)

I would be very interested in knowing what methodologies the author is using now, because whatever he is doing now is probably working. Jeff, are you willing to share any of your latest secrets with us?

As the title states, he gives you a simple pullback type of method based on two indicators. The logistics of is is solid and I have no doubt it can be profitable over time with proper money management. You may be better served just to check this out of the library, as it is quite simple and can be typed up in half a page.

I have tested and traded many systems within the last year and was looking for a short-term swing pattern trading methodology that was simple and controlled losses and I can tell you that by just trading this system alone will make you money, don't think that just because it takes readily available information and puts it together in a way that produces a great trading system, that this book isn't worth the money, It IS! I can tell you from experience that when it comes to trading, it's the simplicity that is rare and effective. If you want a system what will allow you to trade right away with great results than buy this book

This is a easy entrance book for graduated students. Chemical Engineers will be safe with this.

This book by nature handles a very dry subject. However, there are few, if any, examples, and most of those are not relevant to today's technology. In the examples the book does work, units are not kept track of, making it dificult to ascertain where a certain value in an equation came from. In my opinion, this is a good book; it just needs a facelift.

This book has zero usability. It is not an adequate source of reference for any course pertaining to transport phenomena. You would have better luck using the internet to help you get past advanced problems with which you struggle, as this book is poorly organized and has little to offer to the student of any course beyond the introductory level.

As an adjunct professor who teaches Transport Phenomena I purchased this book in the hope that it filled a void that has long existed in the area of solution books on transport phenomena; a good treatment of heat and mass transfer. The Schaum's outlines "Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulics" and "Fluid Dynamics" are good treatments of momentum transport. To its credit the book does include a significant number of problems in heat and mass transport as well as in the area of momentum transport. However the book does not live up to some of its claims:

1. "When students want to look up a particular type of problem and solution they can readily locate it in the book by referring to the index...

The not all of the problems are that easy to find. For example if one looks for transpiration cooling one is referred to problem 16-4 in the section on convective mass transfer. Admittedly this problem has aspects of mass transfer as well as heat tranfer but one would have expected to find this in the section on convective heat transfer (e.g. Transport Phenomena by Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot). Also the index fails to point to another transpiration problem that is solved in chapter 6 (Boundary layer flow and drag force). This is an even more unlikely place to find such a problem. There are a number of other examples of "misplaced problems" which casts some doubt on the editor's expertise in Tranport Phenomena.

2. The book claims to overcome a limitation of most texts namely that of presenting example problems in "abbreviated form which leaves out material between steps and requires that the students derive the ommitted material themselves".

This approach seems to be applied very selectively. Those problems in which the ommitted material is relatively trivial and straightforward are solved in gory detail (see for example problem 6-14). However for problems in which the intermediate steps are not so obvious (see problem 11-10) the intermediate details are omitted. Problem 11-10 is a verbatim repititon of example 10.5-4 in the above mentioned book by Bird et al.) It discusses dimensional analysis of a natural convection problem. Bird et al. appear to choose rather arbitrarily a non-obvious form for the dimensionless quantities used to simplify the transport equations. It would have been useful to explain how these quantities were derived but this opportunity is missed completely.

Overall this book is a reasonably good compilation of a number of classic problems in Transport Phenomena and as such is a handy "one stop shopping" type of reference for teachers. In my rather brief perusal of the book I did not see any new and exciting problems being introduced. Also I don't see this as being a useful learning tool for students since it does not add much to the current solutions that already exist in standard texts on the subject. In fact as a didactic tool it falls far short of the Schaum's outline series in that it presents only problems and solutions with not supporting theoretical discussion.

The focus of this book is on the mathematics of transport phenomena with little regard to applications or accessibility to students. A broad range of topics are condensed into a single book that reads like the hastily prepared lecture notes of the professors. The poor quality of the typesetting, figures and illustrations is frustrating - making the reading process painfully arduous. This is probably the last book I would turn to for information on the subjects listed in the title (most of which is better covered in the 1960's classic Transport Phenomena by Bird, et. al.).

This book was extremely dry. The subjects brought up in the book had no real applications and was only pleasing to those whose fun time is filled with boundry layer equations and diffusion of dilute gases in my butt.