New to trading - Got a bunch of books. Scared to learn outdated things.
- Thread starter Turiacus
- Start date
Read all of them. -- But don't expect any one book to basically instantly make you rich.
It's important you establish a general, well-rounded, and open-minded foundation to the market.
From there, you'll start to slowly see and realize a faint glimmer of light at the end of the trading tunnel
, 
...Kind of like the initial Creation of the Universe...The Big Bang,
You have to appreciate The Game, the Process, the Trade, the Art...don't rush into it...and you'll be a true ET, extraterrestrial trader, -- don't be a fly-by-night bozo trader who will disappear in two months.
2018.
(also keep in mind...wherever you go...99.7% of people are full of crap and/or not successful.)
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You know if you watched this documentary "Wall Street Warriors", this deal maker Sandy actually visited a financial astrologer who manages this fund based on Astrology and this book "Astrology and Stock Market Forecasting" actually showed up in the show; it was one of the books that this financial astrologer had on his bookshelf.
When I saw this, I remember I was shouting in my head "Run, Sandy, RUN!!!" LOL
You said you were a pro poker player, mostly online. How was your success, especially against online opponents? In online poker, you can't read other players emotions so you have to be able to just process the data quickly to determine your odds of success. Those skill sets would serve you well in trading analysis. Why did you quit?
You'll find that once you've read about 3 or 4 books, you'll be able to read the successive books faster and faster since the vast majority of books all say similar things. You'll be going through them quickly looking for any nuggets of potentially useful information unique to that author.
Before doing any research on available trading information, you may be better served just trying to figure things out based on your own analysis of market behavior. Use a trading sim to experiment and create your set of rules of market movement expectations.
Reading what's been done before can give you ideas, but the con is that it can also limit your thinking on how to find new market solutions by subconsciously boxing yourself into other people's ideas of what works and what doesn't. I found myself repeating the same mistakes over and over and couldn't progress until I realized I had internalized some "market rules" I had read which made me keep throwing out new ideas I came up with that didn't jive with them.
A benefit of past research is making the realization that there is no easy "holy grail" solution printed that you can just apply to start making money, regardless of what the writers claim. The more outrageous the claim of "instant wealth", the more that info is suited for entertainment rather than teaching.
The way the markets work, any method that's easily understood/applied and made available to the public becomes outdated because that information results in people changing their behavior, neutralizing that edge. Any listed method that worked well in the past will most likely not work now. You will ultimately have to develop your own unique edge to achieve consistent success- and that can be extremely difficult to do.
The trading sim is your friend- test your ideas there and prove they can work before risking real capital. Read up on the odds of being a successful trader - it's a heavy grind, and then some.
Watch lots of youtube channels on trading. Don't get rid of the books, you can always skim them on the side. Stay away from education courses that fleece thousands from sign ups and teach little of value.
Like mentioned above, throw lots of hours watching markets both in real time and after market hours.
Like mentioned above, throw lots of hours watching markets both in real time and after market hours.
Some aspects of market behaviour don't change. Prices go up and down and trend and range and go through congestion just like they always have. At least, that is, on a daily chart. e.g. I am looking at the Dow daily for the year 1900, and Gold for 1920 and I can promise you, they look just like what they do now. Intra-day is different - don't depend on anything as gospel from even 5 years ago.
This is where you start feeling your youth, I have read like 90% of them, even the astrology books have some degree of expanding your skills. Book are like anything else, if you are beginning to be a car mechanic-you reading manuals and mainly working on American made cars, why not check out Japanese car manuals? Might learn something but what it might do is trigger ideas to do further testing. And no matter what, you going to have to spend that 10,000 hours watching the screen anyway, but at least formulate ideas to test, yes learn programming well.
The best is 20/24/40/41/42/62/65 and get rid of 5/8/18/47/55.
The rest are ok for expanding your mind, knowledge, if you don't find most of trading to be interesting and only doing it for the money, you going to have a tough go at it.
Xela put together an outstanding group of books and she is a profession and very knowledgeable gal on trading.
knowledge gained through experience is far superior and many times more useful than bookish knowledge.I think one must start trading with a little amount and refers few books.you can also take advice from financial advisory companies that will help you in making money through trading.
@Turiacus
You seem like a good guy who wants to put a lot of effort, so if I may say something:
1. Maybe you shoul at first focus on one type of market ? You have books about all the stuff. Look at some markets and try to decide if you would like to trade stocks, commodieties, other futures, options ? And if you decide then go deeper - what sector of stocs you want to focus on ? or which commodities ? wich futures ? options on what ? Not everything at once. Of course you need some understanding of all markets to have a wider picture. An you can use many markets to trade good ideas using different types of it. But start from scratch.
2. That's good that you would like to have many skills and tools to trade. But it is just one part of the coin. You need to check what works on what market better. What doesn't work at all etc. etc. It is a lot of work and will come with time. Maybe you should check what guys in banks or prop firms, hedge funds have on their screens ? to have any idea where to start ?
3. Trading it's about recognising patterns, knowlage and skills in using tools you have. It is just my opinion but I won't use any astrological stuff, Gann, Fibonacci (in fact I won't use technical analysis). At least not as the main source of my decisions. I don't know what kind of trader you would like to be. Very short time, short time, swing, long term ? But still you should think about what other participatns are doing, how they react, spot how your market behave in different situations/ differetn time of the day. Learn to spot patterns, think about correlations and how to use them. How people execute orgers in particular markets.
4. Of course books can help you but let be honest - it is addition. And you need to know 1 thing. you are getting into bs business - and I am not talking about trading. I'm talking about courses/books selling business. 99% of those people can't trade. They will trying to convince you to all they have to get your money. Remember their bread is from selling you something, not from you making money on markets. I will reccomend you books if you want. Go and grab "Fooled by randomness" and "The Black Swan" from Taleb, go and grab "Technical analysis and the active trader" and "The End of The Bull" by Gary Norden, go and read "Market Wizards" and "New Market Wizards" from Schwager, go grab "Reminiscences of Stock Operator" from Lefevre. It is funny, that so manny people have no idea about Taleb and Norden books but all of those guys know Murphys "Technical Analysis". I won't reccomend you to go this way. Bu this is just my opinion.
It's very deep subject...
You seem like a good guy who wants to put a lot of effort, so if I may say something:
1. Maybe you shoul at first focus on one type of market ? You have books about all the stuff. Look at some markets and try to decide if you would like to trade stocks, commodieties, other futures, options ? And if you decide then go deeper - what sector of stocs you want to focus on ? or which commodities ? wich futures ? options on what ? Not everything at once. Of course you need some understanding of all markets to have a wider picture. An you can use many markets to trade good ideas using different types of it. But start from scratch.
2. That's good that you would like to have many skills and tools to trade. But it is just one part of the coin. You need to check what works on what market better. What doesn't work at all etc. etc. It is a lot of work and will come with time. Maybe you should check what guys in banks or prop firms, hedge funds have on their screens ? to have any idea where to start ?
3. Trading it's about recognising patterns, knowlage and skills in using tools you have. It is just my opinion but I won't use any astrological stuff, Gann, Fibonacci (in fact I won't use technical analysis). At least not as the main source of my decisions. I don't know what kind of trader you would like to be. Very short time, short time, swing, long term ? But still you should think about what other participatns are doing, how they react, spot how your market behave in different situations/ differetn time of the day. Learn to spot patterns, think about correlations and how to use them. How people execute orgers in particular markets.
4. Of course books can help you but let be honest - it is addition. And you need to know 1 thing. you are getting into bs business - and I am not talking about trading. I'm talking about courses/books selling business. 99% of those people can't trade. They will trying to convince you to all they have to get your money. Remember their bread is from selling you something, not from you making money on markets. I will reccomend you books if you want. Go and grab "Fooled by randomness" and "The Black Swan" from Taleb, go and grab "Technical analysis and the active trader" and "The End of The Bull" by Gary Norden, go and read "Market Wizards" and "New Market Wizards" from Schwager, go grab "Reminiscences of Stock Operator" from Lefevre. It is funny, that so manny people have no idea about Taleb and Norden books but all of those guys know Murphys "Technical Analysis". I won't reccomend you to go this way. Bu this is just my opinion.
It's very deep subject...
Based on the advice in these books, I find winning on 4 out of 7 trades... sometimes 3 out of 5.You sure you don't want to keep "Astro-Cycles & Speculative Markets - L. J. Jensen" and "Planetary Harmonics of Speculative Markets - Larry Pesavento" or "Astrology and Stock Market Forecasting"? Those tea leaves are mighty useful...
I remember when the moon aligned with Venus, AND Jupiter aligned with Mars. The VIX went into a spin-cycle!