Blanket statement about all authors not making money trading is just that... blanket statement. Granted, there are plenty of empty books written by... ummm... not successful traders, but I wouldn't question trading records of Alan Farley or Tony Oz. There are also authors that were pretty much known in their circles, among pit traders etc, so they simply never saw any need to prove anything. Motives for writing a book for many are well beyond desire to prove anything to anyone.
I think the autobiographical trading books, that basically cover one trader's development from unprofitable loser to consistently profitable successful trader, are amongst the most useful, because they help you see what is required to make that transition. It then becomes much easier to realise what you have to do yourself. Good examples include "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator", "How I made $2 million in the Stock Market" (Nicholas Darvas), and "How I trade for a living" (Gary Smith). I also really like any book containing a detailed trading diary, explaining the trades made, why they were made, how the trader dealt with the positions while the market moved in favour or against them, how they handled the psychological side, and so on. These are useful for the same reason mentioned above - they show you what you have to learn and deal with if you are going to trade for a living. "Alchemy of Finance" is the only book I am aware of which provides this in detail. If anyone knows of a book with a good detailed trading diary, I would like to hear about it.
THREEI. You have to show your $ figures. What if your started your prop account with $10k. And you leveraged it up trading 1k share lots.. and you make $8k at the end of the year. Big deal! If you want your stats to be taken seriously by professional traders you have to divulge how much $ you actually made. You need to show... 1. Initial account size. 2. How leveraged you were. 3. Drawdowns. 4. Net Profits. 5. Most importantly how many accounts were you actually trading at the time. I've seen people trade 5 accounts and one of them was a big winner the rest breakeven and losses. Idealy if that account you traded was your own personal account and thats all you traded.. then more power to u. If you fail to show this.. your 88%+ gain is meaningless. You dont have to certify those stats.. but you can share it with others on ET. If you dont I will be very suspicous as to why not. --MIKE
There is nothing to read into this, really. On some rare occassions I take position for morning gap - maybe couple time a month, maybe less. It rather a fluke than a style of trading. Letter mentions the trading approach that was applied, and since there were rare deviations from it, objectivity required to include this, too. Simple as that.
book 1 and 2 , they are his diary http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0934380414/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-7040759-9306253#reader-link