There have already been threads on the books that ET members have found to be the most helpful and useful in their trading. Let's try it from the other side. What is the worst trading book you have ever read? And if you had the misfortune of reading it during your impressionable formative period as a budding trader, did it actually set you back? Stated differently, did it not only provide no value, but actually cause you harm in any way?
List is too long. Basically everything by anyone who gives seminars and/or has a newsletter or website. When buying books look for warning words in the inside back cover blurb like "Website" "service" "newsletter", "trainer" etc also "Professor".
99% of trading books are useless and/or outdated. Maybe a few have a trace of original material, while the rest is just rehashing everything you already know.
Everything on Elliot Wave especially Prechter's stuff - lead to a period following his newsletter and a true understanding of Snake Oil
Yep! That about sums up where this thread needs to go. Read books for entertainment only (like Market Wizards).
Any how-to book on trading sold for less than $500 (with lone exception of Thomas N. Bulkowski chart patterns editions) are worthless outside of very general knowledge and amusement. I've bought and read 100s of titles, and cannot think of a single exception other than those noted above. Hey, you get what you pay for in life, and you get what you don't pay for as well. Too many aspiring traders are led to believe they can scrounge up effective trading tactics, cost-free gleaned from some cheapie books and/or free internet info. By the time said aspiring traders test out all of that generic fluff in real time with real money, countless thousands $$ have been lost = spent to the markets. Process happens every day, is happening right now this minute, I'm sure. There are examples in various threads of this forum where traders read a book or were exposed to some trade system / method that they studied for about ten minutes, began trading in real time and let themselves get carved to pieces. What is the true cost of that "free information" when accounts are balanced? In life, everything comes with a price to pay. * Books on chart patterns, trend lines, price structure teach the basis of how price action works. There's a helluva lot more to successful trading than that, but understanding price structure is a big start. ** Most worthless book I've read? A lot of obscure titles are about equal, by far the most prominent title in this group being <b>"Reminisces Of A Stock Operator"</b>. The biography novel of a failed trader who ran the gamut of negative emotions one too many times and hit rock bottom at the end. Nothing in that work for trading tactics is applicable today. Merely a sad saga of what not to do in our profession, entertaining in a morbid way, terrible on the education front.
<i>"Far and away, The Master Swing Trader by Alan Farley."</i> To be honest, that is one book I couldn't even finish. It may have plenty of merit inside, but I found it so muddy to read that it lost my (admittedly short) attention span over and over again. Farley might be an excellent trader, don't know. The book could use some serious paring down = editing for clarity. A book with solid info but equally muddy is DiNapoli's title. Think I paid $150 or something similar for it... some real good stuff inside, very poor flow of thought process IMO. I recently bought Joe Ross book, "Trading As A Business" or similar title for $150. Again, interesting stories inside and well-written, but I closed the back cover feeling like I didn't learn something that would make / save me any money. I have a lot of respect for what Joe has done in this industry, but that book will not help put/keep one extra dollar in my pocket.