I recommend (in the following order.....) 1. Chart observation.....Chart observation.....Chart observation, etc., etc., etc. 2. EliteTrader.com 3. Active Trader
Friend OxonianTrader, All the info you can place your hands on gonna be useful ofcourse to enrich you as a trader and as person as well. However I agree with the HarryTrader's post in the regard of trading. You don't need to master the economy fundamentals to trade. In the context of your post you're talking about Bonds-Stocks relationship, which is true. All the markets are linked one to another somehow. If you want to go deeper is this matter you gonna find that the market relationship doesn't stop there so you also will discover the direct or indirect relation of the US markets to the Japanese Markets to the British market , German Bonds to US bonds , Us Bonds to Japanese Yen and the list goes on and on and on. Trading magazines are great they print very good articles about fundamentals , technicals, tools , market psychology, etc , but probably they don't cover the specific economical "machinery" so deeply. As other fellows posted , your local library is a very good place to start. It will all depends on how deeper and wider do you want to know how the financial market works. That might be a journey of a lifetime. Best.
What I quoted above is about interest rates and so bond markets. And through arbitrage theory all markets are tightly linked and for once in practice it is also "true" (in practice for trading). I didn't say that knowledge of Economy (as for its mechanics understanding) is not useful, in fact I have and will always say that economic and financial knowledge are necessary for global vision but this is different from the useless informations you can read in economic magazines (from trading point of view not from others) that would explain you AFTER the fact that stock market has plunged due to the dollar's plunge and that when you read forex analysts who would say that the dollar has plunged because of stock market well if this is the kind of trivial information (which ressembles tautology) that you want then I won't say anything against that . I caricature of course but I think that if you really want to learn something it is in economic books for the mechanics and above all trading books and magazines because the short term mechanics are well different from the long term mechanics and economic is about long term not variation on minute hour day week or even month scales but rather years.
You have made some nice comments in response to others. One very pertinent thing you said above, shows good movement in your thinking. You may get to a place where your skills and tools will allow you to do what you wish. Most people do not get to a place where they can even consider the better possibilites for operating in the financial industry. In the financial industry everything is related to everything else and it is very remarkable how you can anticipate correctly anything that you chose to focus upon. You can see many people here have closed almost all the doors they have failed to pass through. Luckily making money in markets just comes down to doing it better than others. that you can do. You will find out what to read and it will be excellent stuff too. Just read what you mentor gives you to read and mimick his information gathering techniques. Pick a really rich mentor who has lots of successful younger buddies doing what he does.
Marketsurfer, I too believe knowledge is power in this game and not just market knowledge. I was wondering if you could briefly list some of the magazines you subscribe to. I generally read: Futures SFO Magazines US News & World Report. Thanks in advance!
imho: If you're going to day or swing trade, almost all the mags and papers are just so you can carry on an intelligent conversation with others in the financial community but they offer little to improve your trading. However, being able to network and communicate with others is huge if trading is going to be a career I am sure. But you can learn what you need from the free stuff (cbsmarketwatch): downgrades, overnight Tokyo news, earnings reports, macro reports that will effect the mkt in the next few days. Also: some of the free forex sites have great macro/economic news and tell you what you really need to know to understand the basics of the int'l mkts. Some fundamental reading can help but it's icing on the cake. 90% of what you need to know is in places like Elite Trader, Active Trader and other things that people have already mentioned....
Hardly. Why not just grab a copy and start reading? I think that's rather unlikely. Reading it will certainly help you keep abreast of the direction and state of world economic development -- well, from the perspective of one 'what's best for humanity' point of view, anyway. Just remember, most of what you read in financial publications is underlied by the mentality of the following classic post that I've dug up for you, by Babak. (Maybe after one year of reading such publications you will still be under the impression that there is a group of people out there that "knows" something about the markets. Make a point to check out the above link in ten years time, however, and it's a good bet you will have changed your mind.)