 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | Features forex market guidelines and sample trading plans The fun and easy way to get started in currency trading Want to capitalize on the growing forex market? This nuts-and-bolts guide gives you a step-by-step action plan for understanding and trading the forex market. It offers practical guidance and savvy tips in everything from comprehending currency quotes to using leverage, trading with fundamentals, and navigating technical analysis. - Identify trading opportunities
- Understand what drives the market
- Choose a trading broker
- Execute a successful trade
- Minimize risk and maximize profit
- Analyze currency charts
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Average Customer Rating:   Good Introduction Any time an investment vehicle hits the front page of the WSJ where relatively unsophisticated individual investors are "making millions" - as currency trading did in the Fall of 2009 - I need to look into the next potential individual investor nightmare.
The book was written by the founders of [...]. As the title notes, this is a book on trading, not hedging - and the authors do a great job in giving an overview of the currency trading markets. In a relatively brief 325 pages or so, they discuss in some level of detail:
* What the FOREX market is
* How it works
* Macroeconomic factors impacting currency rates
* Fundamental analysis techniques
* Technical analysis - including charting, trend analysis, candlesticks
* Developing a logical trading plan
* Trade execution - includinga couple of examples
* Common mistakes and best practices
* Risk Management
* Other resources
The relatively high leverage levels in currency trading (100:1 is common) lend to the potential of high risk, high return trading strategies. The authors are not shy about pointing out the risks and the recurring theme of having a trading plan.
I also agree with a number of the other reviewers that the authors do tend to use a lot of terms (both FX and economic) without real adequate definition, and a few more trading examples would be helpful. Nevertheless, if individual traders follow the advice in the book - particularly around these two subjects (including post-trade analysis) - they shouldn't get burned completely by a very sophisticated and reasonably efficient market. If you are looking to get into FOREX trading, and are new to it, read this book and follow the authors' advice on planning and risk. Review The book does a reasonably good job introducting currency trading. However, the book can use more examples targetted at clarifying the material and explain more in depth the concepts presented. Some concepts are not completely clear and the reader must get an online practice account to get a better feel of currency trading. A bit of a mugs game but if you are going to do it, know what you are doing. Currency trading seems to be a bit of mugs game - I would advise against getting into it based on my own experience. I made some very big gains and then lost it all but have to say that there was a lot of randomness to it. It is easy to make money when a trend goes your way. But trends end.
This book gives practical enough information about the trading side but won't really help you to make money. You really have to know what you are doing. Better than all the rest I purchased 5 book on FX Trading expecting the least from a Dummies book. It easily exceeded all my expectations and then surpassed all the other books. It's a great choice. Good basics, but miss a HUGE point Let me be honest here:
This book provides some really good advice about trading the forex market. Which currencies have what tendencies, which times and reports to look out for, how to manage trades and money, etc. It provides the basics for any beginner. But, if you are a beginner, you will NOT notice something EXTREMELY important that the authors of this book did not mention ON PURPOSE. The authors, in full disclosure, state they are associated with [...](i.e. Gain Capital). And while in the book they make it seem that since [...] is part of/is a(n) FCM/CFTC/NFA (basically throwing out terms to a beginner to make it seem safe and legit), the author's on purpose do not mention that [...]is NOT an ECN broker, and hence you'd think that with all those acronyms they'd be credible, but think otherwise. In real short, what this means is that if you are not an ECN broker, you are allowed to, and most disclose in very fine print hidden among pages of other details they know few will read, take on purpose trades opposite of yours (hedge), in order to make more profits and ensure that begineers get wiped out and even good traders don't last for the long term. There are many more terrible practices these bucketshops use like fishing for stops, spread manipulation, etc, and [...]has the "white gloves" implied in this book very much dirty. Just google it if you don't believe me.
Just thought I'd throw this out there for any beginners. Choose your books wisely, but don't trust everything they say, and make sure you know what they failed to say and why.
EDIT: I don't mean to pick on Gain Capital specifically. All I am saying is when you do go to choose ANY forex broker, keep my information in mind since it wasn't outlined in the book.
Edit#2: Just in case, another point that wasn't mentioned: rememmber that if your broker is not FDIC insured, and they go under, all your money with them will almost certainly never be seen again (don't fall for their sales/marketing ploys of "we're the biggest ones" or we have a safe and positive balance sheet; if you never heard of Enron, GM, WAMU, then you'd need to read a bit about them). The only FDIC insured FX broker I know of is CITIFxPro, which, if you read in fine print, is managed by Saxo Bank, not CitiBank. |  |
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