Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered, Registered Users, Unverified Users
Joined: 3/25/2005(UTC)
Posts: 90
Location: London
|
My idea is to set up a Book Library in the "resource library" section. Members who've read a good book on Technical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis, Economic Theory etc could enter the title, author, ISBN, publisher and a few comments and a recommendation. Other readers could add their views which might agree or disagree.
We all want to learn more. So what books have you read? Which ones were useless or brilliant?
Which ones are the best for covering topics like Gann? Learning Metastock?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Newbie
Groups: Registered, Registered Users
Joined: 3/11/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1
|
hi,
nice idea, I like reading, hope get more news about this.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered, Registered Users, Subscribers
Joined: 4/1/2006(UTC)
Posts: 135
Location: Romania
|
In my opinion technical analysis books are good only for beginners until they realize that to have a chance in the market one must come with his own ideeas, somehow to reinvent the wheel. Eventually one should try to understand how an indicator its constructed and for that he needs only the formula and somtimes not even that because the plot could give a answer.
I will not make a comment about topics like Gann or Elliot Waves, a beginer should read once about them and after that his brain should tell him if those are useful or not. (i am sorry about those without a brain and for their money).
To learn metastock one only needs metastock help and his brain again.
As u can see my opinion is that to be succesful u need only one thing: BRAIN.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered, Registered Users, Subscribers
Joined: 5/10/2006(UTC)
Posts: 252
Thanks: 11 times
Was thanked: 9 time(s) in 6 post(s)
|
Just for starters, I strongly recommend all three books by Alexander Elder: Trading for a Living, Come Into My Trading Room and Entries and Exits - read them in that order. The second book updates and elaborates on the first, but I still recommend reading the first one first, in order to follow his development of methods. I believe his books helped me straighten out my brain by answering two questions which are much more profound that you'd think at first glance: "What is technical analysis?" and "What is the primary goal of a successful trader?"
Also, read the three Market Wizards interview books by Jack Schwager; there are many thought-provoking, instructive comments and timeless lessons in there, and you'll see how many professionals keep coming back to the basic truths about what's important to succeed.
Except for historical research or TA background, I would avoid any books that have the thesis "My systems and methods will make you rich!" because even if they have worked at some point in the past they're not likely to work now, simply because things change.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Newbie
Groups: Registered, Registered Users, Subscribers
Joined: 5/17/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1
|
Dear all,
I think the idea is very good, but we need to discuss the point where we start. Because someone like me don't know much about Technical Analysis, so I think we need to stat form something simple.I hope we spend more time for this topic, because it very helpul.
Have a nice day for all,
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered, Registered Users
Joined: 10/15/2005(UTC)
Posts: 31
Location: The Netherlands
|
I was for myself very important to distinguish the following themes, in order of importancy:
1. trading psychology
2. disciplined trading (trading by a strategy)
3. money management (also position sizing)
4. instrument selection (stocks, option, forex, CFD, futures, etc)
5. exit signals
6. entry signals (this is indeed on the last spot, because it is the least important. That's why it is very strange that it is the main subject of discussions on the internet. 80% of your success in trading is caused by psychology, discipline and money management!).
The books which helped me on these themes are:
1. Mark Douglas - Trading in the Zone
2. John Carter - Mastering the Trade
3. K. van Tharp - Trade your way to Financial Freedom
5 and 6.:
- Constance Brown - Technical Analysis for the Trading professional
- John Hayden - RSI: The complete Guide
I totally agree with the thing i read on this page, that one's must develop it's own strategy. Only after developing your own, you have the trust in following it in detail and in a disciplined manner.
Good luck!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered, Registered Users, Subscribers
Joined: 5/10/2006(UTC)
Posts: 252
Thanks: 11 times
Was thanked: 9 time(s) in 6 post(s)
|
Huytq, as I said above, I recommend you read Alex Elder's books as part of your starting-out reading. From there the sky's the limit; my trading library currently has over 100 books and I've read about 2/3 of them so far with the rest in the queue.
One that I was skeptical about is "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator", which seems to be on everyone's "must read" book list. I doubted that a book published in 1923 would have much relevance or hold much interest for us "modern" folks. But I finally picked up my copy and read it.
Conclusion? Read it. Read it as soon as you can.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered, Registered Users, Unverified Users
Joined: 3/25/2005(UTC)
Posts: 90
Location: London
|
“The Encyclopaedia of Technical market Indicators” by Robert W Colby.
Published by McGraw-Hill. 2nd Edition About £35-£45 2003. ISBN 0-07-012057-9
A thick heavy book with 820 pages. see his website robertwcolby.com
Overview
Colby reviews and tests 127 technical analysis indicators. He used Metastock to produce his results. He concludes that market prices move in trends and price trends persist. The best indicators for profit are Exponential Moving Average & Weighted Moving Average, plus Percentage Hughes AD oscillator with 8 parameters and some others.
Many indicators were worse than buy-and-hold even though some gave very high win rates. Although high win/loss rate is an obsession of novices, Colby favoured high reward/risk ratio (total net profit to maximum equity drawdown).
Colby describes how many of the top traders in the world, like Jack D Schwager, use back testing to prove their trading strategies. He mentions Richard Dennis turned $400 into $200M in 16 yrs dealing in the Chicago Futures market. Dennis taught his trading rules to 23 raw trainees whom he called his turtles. 20 out of 23 got average returns of 100% pa.
Indicator table
Each indicator is described in detail with the Metastock formula and system testing report (P&L summary stats). Colby trades using purely mechanical signals with no subjectivity, no sophisticated technical analysis and no judgement. He provides a 4 page table to rank the indicators by:
- Versus buy & hold = Overall percentage superiority of the indicator compared with buy-and-hold net profit amount.
- Annual relative advantage (percentage) compared with buy-and-hold.
- L & S % win (Long & short percentage win)
- Short % win (Short percentage win)
- Average trades per year – results showed huge variation from 0.2 trades pa to 141 trades pa. (Helpful for day traders and long term swing traders to see which indicator best suits their trading style).
- Profit loss index = $ amount of winners to losers. Worst performance is –100. Best is +100; zero when profit equals loss.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered, Registered Users, Subscribers
Joined: 10/29/2004(UTC)
Posts: 1,394
Location: Glastonbury, CT
Was thanked: 2 time(s) in 2 post(s)
|
Dear Alpha, comparing Buy & Hold vs any system depends on the types of assets traded and then on how many periods are loaded into metastock.
If you load enough data and then continue to compare a trading system with say 1500 bars all of the time, it's like using a 1500 bar moving average. You get drop off . you have to make sure that your test data has uptrends and downtrends and sideways stretches so that you truly evaluate the systems in true market conditions.
If you trade with a trend, compare the size of the trend vs how much you pull out of the trend,then look at how many trades it took to get ahead, then compare drawdown.
buy & hold depends on the starting date value vs the ending value. Now if your test data started in the middle of a trend vs the begining of a trend , vs the end of a trend, you will get skewed results. This also affects the ending value of your test data
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Users browsing this topic |
|
Guest (Hidden)
|
Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum.
You cannot reply to topics in this forum.
You cannot delete your posts in this forum.
You cannot edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You cannot vote in polls in this forum.
