Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Expert tactics to become make the most of every swing trade

In Mastering the Trade, veteran trader and educator John Carter shares his hard-won five-point technique for successful swing trading. In addition, Carter helps you move to the next level of confidence by explaining how markets really work and detailing behind-the-scenes market mechanics.

Average Customer Rating:

Good Book -- But Lacks Money Management Techniques

Customer Rating:

Always looking for more information, I got this book since it is so popular. I already use the "Applied Reality Trading" software, so wasn't really needing Carter's set-ups, but found them informative. And, the rest of the book has much valuable information also, but is lacking in a key area of educating the reader about the importance of risk control and money management. The areas that were my favorite were: 1) Ways that Carter takes the pulse of market emotions - a) Dive, Captain, Dive - he writes about how when "newbie" traders on a free trial in his trading room press the "submarine dive" noise - the more experienced traders know that it is time to cover their shorts and go long. b) What does your mother think? Another way he uses sentiment from "non-traders" to gauge when the market is topping or bottoming -- is by listening them interpret news headlines. 2) His drawdown rules and profit rules are useful for formulating your own personal rules. For example if Carter is down by 20% for the month he will stop trading for the rest of the month, and, if he hits a 30% total drawdown on his account, he takes a six week break from trading. 3) The profit rules are equally useful. Love his "euphoria" rule where if he has a day in which he makes $5,000 per $100,000 (or 5% return on his money in one day), he will "...take the next day off to escape those feelings of euphoria that cause traders to do stupid things...". And then, he says he will withdraw 50% of his trading profits at the end of each quarter. The areas of the book that were weak were the following: 1) Risk control is weak, although he briefly mentions at the end of the book to not risk more than 2% of your account equity on any one trade, which is helpful. What has been profitable for me, is using the risk of ruin tables and the optimal f formula to be more precise with exactly how much to risk. You can get some easy formulas on this approach from McDowell's book "A Trader's Money Management System" A Trader's Money Management System: How to Ensure Profit and Avoid the Risk of Ruin (Wiley Trading) and you may find at times it is better to risk 1% or 2.5% or maybe even higher. The percent risked is based on what your pay off ratio and win ratio -- so it is not a shot in the dark with a flat 2% risk. 2) Paper trading has helped me refine my skills and, in my opinion, one weakness in Carter's book and philosophy is that he says "...paper trading it's more worthless than an iraqui dinar...". It will be hard for readers to dive right into the markets trying his set ups and be profitable if they don't test them in a safe environment (like paper trading), to at least see if they hold merit for their personal trading style and psychology. Maybe I'm more cautious than Carter, but I'd rather test the waters before jumping in. Overall, this book will get you started, but you'll need a few other tools and books to round out your tool kit before entering the markets.

Must read

Customer Rating:

This is a MUST read. I have read a lot of books on trading and this book is really the only one that had helped me. That is an understatement. This book had changed my trading life forever!! Read all the other reviews and let me add this. Read the book cover to cover twice. Go to his website and sign up for his newsletter. Get the 4 day seminar on dvd. Buy the 5 indicator package. And finally start making some money. Yes all of this is expensive. It is worth every cent.. I paid for all of this in one day of trading using the indicators and his techniques!! Trading for me now is no stress, no yelling at the screen. And finally I have stopped buying the guy on the other side of the trade dinner or worse. No, I am not affiliated with TTM, this stuff just works and I wanted to share the news.

Read first, read often!

Customer Rating:

New to day trading? Read this first and read it often. Plain english with plenty of examples to make clear sense of the trading methods described. I have purchased no less than six books on the subjects of trading, options, investing etc. in the past year, all of them left me with a feeling of not getting what I paid for. Some were just a long winded infomercials for some product or service. Not this book. Worth every penny.

Mastering The Trade

Customer Rating:

I was excited to receive this book because it is written by a seasoned professional and as such carries a lot more credibility than one from someone who never actually managed money. I am a money manager and systems developer myself and have managed huge positions and had many hundreds of clients. The first few chapters of the book cover some basics particularly those relating to psychology and setting up to trade. All of it is good. The section on computers is as would be expected for a book published in 2006. Then the book gets into some areas of trading. Chapter 5 is excellent and covers various breadth and/or market internal measurements. I found this chapter to be worth the price of the book as I have always traded with breadth and it was very nice to catch some differt viewpoints and ideas. John Carter is not a systems trader and I am. I code everything and test it extensively. Mr. Carter is a discretionary trader and as I started to code his methods (Part two) I found them to not hold up very well to the scrutiny of computer analysis. The concepts are still of value though, so I still recommend it as excellent reading and a wide array of excellent trading ideas that could be built on. Many times it is the process in the thinking that is of more value that the content itself. So, if you are inclined to purchase the book to find instantly useable trading ideas, you might come up short. But, if you want something that might inspire some of your own brilliance, of course, you may just find a jewel or two. Section three of the book covers more on planning, psychology and the game of trading. This is an excellent book for any level of trader.

A Must Have for All Traders	Customer Rating:
This book is a must for day traders. Carter's set-ups for buys and sells are amazing. Since reading and studing his methods I have almost doubled my daily revenue and looking at 6 figures this year. If you only read one book (and I have read many) this simple to understand and well documented text will serve you for the rest of your career in the market.