Trading books that aren't Liar's Poker

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adehbone:

Technical Analysis: The Complete Resource for Financial Market Technicians by Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management by Alexander Elder Natural Gas & Electric Power in Nontechnical Language by Ann Chambers

would also recommend fletch sturm's book if your interested in trading gas

r u a bank teller at a BB?

Read "The Little Book that Beats the Market" it's about value investing and it's also short and sweet.

do a search. that's all folks.

My favourite has always been "Trading for a Living" by Dr. Alexander Elder. You have a pretty good list here http://equity-research.com/investment-and-trading-books/

Read anything by Jim Rogers.

wtf is this? Trading for Dummies? That kind of stuff and the stuff mentioned is targeted towards equity investing with a more value approach. If you get a job as a trader, depending on the firm of course, you are not going to be doing that shit.

Pick up Natenberg and perhaps Hull as well if you want to get into some of the more 'math-y' side of things with derivatives (options, futures, swaps, etc.).

Search the forum, I know there are at least two good topics where I've gotten books from.

Thanks for the replies guys. Believe me this has been more than helpful. Looks like I have my summer reading list all set =)

Thanks for the replies guys. Believe me this has been more than helpful. Looks like I have my summer reading list all set =)

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator + Hedge Fund Market Wizards.

No book will teach you how to trade. You won't find a book on how to beat the market, a legit book anyway. Market Wizards are good to give you an insight into a diverse mix of traders but they all have their different style, as should you. Authors like Van k TARP, mark Douglas and Brett steenberg (check out his blog trader feed) offer good insight into personal management and development which is really the key for a beginner.

You need to decide what markets you will trade, level of commitment, style of traditional etc. I'm a day trader myself I rely heavily on techs and the order flow through level 2. Japanese candle still by Steve nison is a very good book and worth a read through.

don't trade, invest.

/thread

Euan Sinclair's Option Trading book is pretty decent

It sounds like you are starting from scratch here, so you should read all of the Market Wizards books. That way you will get broad exposure of some various styles. There are some specific trade examples in there, although the analysis used is probably too unsophisticated for today's markets. It is a good starting point. Alexander Elder's Come Into My Trading Room is cheesy but it has the basics of risk management which is by far the most important part of being a successful trader.

In terms of idea generation, ultimately all forms of trading/investing are about pattern recognition. The key is to build up a mental database of specific patterns that give you higher confidence that a certain outcome will happen. No one will just hand you these patterns (outside of technicals, but even technicals are not as simple as just looking at the chart), you have to build it up yourself through years of watching, trading, reading, and analyzing. It could be something like this... two markets usually move in lock-step, but one of them starts moving independently, what is causing that? Does this mean something is afoot? You investigate, there is no apparent driver, but your intuition suggests that there could be a big seller that is causing the relationship to break down, so you go short if you think there is more to come from that seller. Or something like this... a certain country has a weakening current account position, heavy outstanding float of sovereign debt, deep fiscal deficit, but a paradoxically strong currency... what would the central bank do in this situation? Looks like a situation where they might want to ease aggressively, so you go long the front end of the curve or short the currency. These are heavily simplified examples that are meant to illustrate the kind of thinking that goes into trades.

The keys are to find a style that you believe in, fits with your personality, and best utilizes your strengths. Most likely you will start somewhere, and then your style will evolve over time as you make mistakes, learn, and iterate. There are many books that I could recommend that would help you become a better trader, but there really isn't a manual that will hold your hand and tell you everything that you need to know. It's more that you pick up little bits and pieces, and slowly over time, you pull them together into a cohesive trading style. At this stage, the key is just to be curious, keep an open mind, and read as much as you can. I'd suggest following the markets section of the WSJ or FT, to see if there are any particular asset classes that interest you, or types of situations, etc. From there, you should start trading with a small amount of money. @Bondarb has a good post where he details the initial steps -

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/how-to-start-trading-compliments-…

read WSJ and follow the markets and try to identify an asset class that interests you. as many of the comments above with far more experience than me have said its tough to read books on how to trade: its something you have to do.

however, you can read books on a certain product and develop a fundamental understanding of that product. that should put you in a better place when you do walk on to a trading desk.

look into the CME trading challenge. will give you familiarity with a trading platform and putting together basic trade ideas.

The trader interviews books are fun, and they do identify common important areas to look out for. However, having an open mind is probably the most important tool. For what it's worth, between HF Market Wizards and Inside the House of Money, nearly all of the discretionary fixed-income centric fund managers blew up, with I think the only exception having made 0 money in 2013.

Market Wizards / New Market Wizards

+1 Market Wizards +1 Reminesces of a Stock Operator +1 Trading in the zone +1 Trade You Way to Financial Freedom Ugly Americans Liars Poker Boomerrang The Big Short

I dont know the book but something to learn the greeks for options Something on excel VBA

As said above there is no book that teaches you how to trade. But if you want to get better as a trader I would recommend to look for books that fit into one of three categores:

1) Books about other Traders: These are books like the warren buffet essays, or any of the interview style books. The purpose is to get a bit of an insight into how successfull traders look at risk. The books id recommend in this category are:

-Market Wizards and New Market Wizards: its fun read but a bit dated now, you can still take some high level lessons from it about risk management, but in terms of detailed knowledge it doesnt provide much

-Inside the House of Money and The Invisible Hands: sort of like market wizards but much more recent. Very highly recommended.

2) Books about economic history: These are the 100-200 page books on a specific topic. If you want to learn about economic history, pick a list of 5-10 events and find a short and easy read on each one. For example:

-The Argentina Crisis: "The Money Kept Rolling in and Out" -> very highly recommended

3) Books about product knowledge: These are technical books. You cant trade anything without knowing the product. THis list is too long to spell out, but for each product there are 1-2 go to books, if you have a speciifc product in mind PM me.

I would add The Inner Game of Tennis and some Brett Steenbarger books to all listed above. They will help you understand how you should work to get where you want.

try Tuckman

thanks

natenberg is considered the options bible. anyone and everyone who works with options has read natenberg.

the classic is murphy for TA

Thanks..What about a good options strategy book?

1. Euan Sinclair
2. Natenberg
3. Cottle
4. Vine

The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing (Dorsey) is a great one. I'm sure others will give you the classics, but this one helped me out a lot. It's geared towards finding companies with competitive advantages, strong management, and free cash flow. It covers everything from top to bottom.

Read the book, was more looking for equity trades (eg holdout trades), ie from a structural perspective. How can one do trades apart from simply L/S. thanks

Anyone has a good one (apart from You can be a stock market genius)? thanks

youre not really going to find any books that have anything 'legit' in terms of strategies you can plop down and instantly make cash -- some technical stuff can be good but they are tools and not sure fire money strategies and most people dont understand that. there are a lot of books on the varying types of arbitrage and whatnot that you can find but any strategy worth its weight in gold isnt going to be printed in a book until AFTER the strategy has dried up

Bump

Why didn't you ask the recruiter about intern responsibilities, etc? Show some interest when you pick up the phone.

i know of liars poker and stock market operator...any others

did the same program but got in super late through a connection. I worked for an advisor just donig research, looootttt of grunt work for him, answering phones. Didn't do a whole lot of "finance" stuff as wealth management is more about building relationships with people. Good experience defintely soething I would consider doing one day. Pay is good also

It sounds like it might get mistaken as a bs ML/UBS PWM internship...

cool thansk

I don't think that book prices are volatile enough to really trade them. Might be good long-term investments though.

Are you asking about a primer to bid/ask among dealers specifically, or just a general capital markets intro? Because at the risk of sounding sarcastic(I'm not), perhaps a textbook is the best option?

To answer the basics of bid/ask: Stock prices are "set" based on what the market is willing to buy/sell at. You won't be buying @ the exact price shown, nor will you sell at that price. The dealer makes a "spread" from buying lower than they can sell, & selling above what they buy at. This is why prices fluctuate so much in less than a second, prices are at no point set in stone.

How do you know you want to be a quant when you don't even know how to buy a stock?

There's a big difference between trading and investing. If you want to learn how to invest, read Buffett's letters to shareholders and then go read a bunch of 10-Ks. If you want to learn how to trade, give up now because you're going to lose all your money.

A cult classic:

http://www.my10000dollars.com/MS.pdf

Diary of a commodities trader

Market Wizards, More Money Than God, and Drobny's books.

Seriously, I'm feeling a lot of Deja Vu... But yea, Market Wizards is good, and its sequel too.

See the thread I started about trading psychology, it has a lot of really good books listed in there. Psychology and disipline are the most important things in trading.

You will hardly find a book on trading ideas that is relevant. And if you did then it wouldnt be worth much anymore anyway.

Once you know the assets, the rest is up to you, get creative.

^^ I second what derivstrading said. The ideas have to be your own. Most books will help with market psychology and theory, but that's about it. No one is going to share any extremely lucrative trading ideas in a book. There are more wealthy traders/fund managers than best selling authors, so the market does not demand it.

If you can track down Klarman's Margin of Safety online or at a library, it's a good read, but doesn't focus on FX or FI.