Two seperate Books anybody have any comments about them, reviews seem mixed on the book sites. The Master Swing Trader by Farley The Master Day Trader by Capra Both MacGraw-Hill published this last year.
Good book with a few pearls of knowledge. Poorly written. Don't look for any of the important points to jump out at you, it seems like he's trying to be secretive. The set-ups are old-hat with new names. Also, while it's called "Master Swing Trader" you need to be sitting at your computer during the day to execute according to his plans. Good Luck and Big Profits!
don't bother with capra's book. it's poorly written and is basically just a plug for their online "guru" services. the trading "systems" in the book don't work anymore (they probably only did during the nasdaq runup when any idiot could make $$$ day trading) in terms of what is useful, i could sum it up for you right here: 1) watch the futures 2) control your losses 3) watch the futures 4) control your losses
I recently completed the book (also have a review on Amazon), and was not too crazy about it. For me it was excessively wordy and really did not define for me where his entry, exit, stops and profit goals were. Now maybe I just missed the point, as I do sometimes. Toward the end of the book I found myself just flipping through pages to get done with it. On a positive note I am reading Stock Market Profits written in the 30s and it is a great book. Ideas, psychology, money management, seems the more things change the more they stay the same. It is not a pure trading book, but I try to read as much as I can.
The Master Swing Trader - excellent book.. its obvious that Alan is a trader and not a writer, but it has alot of good information.. The Master Day Trader - this one has alot of info about the mental aspect of the game as well as some trading ideas.. some of the stuff about selectnet L2 etc is outdated but it has some great trading ideas.. i trade the consolidation/late day breakout all the time.. both are worth the money in my opinion.. -qwik
Agin The books by Capra and Farley are mass marketed books not worthy of the paper their written on. Good trading books are specialty items and usually have to be special ordered. You'll very seldom find the better trading books on the shelf at the local bookstore. The best book on swing trading is "Dave Landry on Swing Trading". You'll pay a lil bit more but its worth it!!!! Sterling
Out of curiosity what other books if any do you like? I love to read books on both trading and investment and always look to add to my collection. Not so much to find one winning strategy, but to pick up those "ooh yeahh, i've seen that" ideas. From Wade Cook to Benjamin Graham, I usually find something of interest. What makes the book you recommended better than most? Thanks
trdrmac After spending thousands of dollars on books, the few books i can say were good investments are: Daytrading With Short Term Price Patterns by Toby Crabel Trading with DiNapoli Levels by Joe Dinapoli Advanced Trading Strategies by Laurence Connors I can only recommend a book when i get a sense that the author has done his time in the trading pits. Most trading books today are just rehashed versions of a book written 50 years ago by Magee/Edwards called Technical Alaysis of Stock Trends. By the way i would definitely include Dave Landrys' book in my list, also. Sterling
I have read both the books mentioned and I have to agree that Farelys book is very difficult to read but is worth making the effort. I found I understood it a lot better on the second reading. Alan came over to the UK last summer to give a four day trading course. I think he is a genuine person, I found him to be very honest and very modest about his trading results. I posted some details about his course on the UK motely fool site some time ago if anyone is interested here is the link. http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6659900 Nev
MST is excessively wordy, repetitious and full of unnecessarily invented jargon. Others have said it is easier the second time. I was not able to raise the enthusiasm to finish all of it the first time, let alone twice. However, someone who has not read much else on short term trading could get some useful stuff out of it if they have the patience and perseverence. I think it will suffer badly in the test of time as so many examples were taken from a bubble market. That could be true of other books too. It was clear in the discussion on Silicon Investor leading up to its publication that his publisher was pressuring him to prune it but he strongly resisted, obviously believing every word was a pearl of wisdom. He was wrong not to listen.