Books 02 (Nov 08 - Nov 09)

[greenhoney]

just finished this book titled "inside the house of money" the second ed. its interesting to peek into the world of hedge funds and see how they 'work' the market. they trade anything, anywhere, anytime the global macro way.

[helios]

girl girl is taking a break from all these investment books ...

this month will focus on reading NLP, neuro-linguistic programming books/ chapters.

just yesterday, someone commented that he's speaking like 'obamic' ...

[winston]

Wow... NLP.

They did change my life.

[helios]

NLP. They did change my life.

??? Please elaborate ... ...

[winston]

Ha Ha.. When I attended the Silva Course, it did opened my mind to a lot of other things eg. Synchronicity ( meaningful coincidenes ).

Also Tony Robbins did use NLP in his tapes. I used to listen to his tapes diligently in my younger days ...

[iam802]

Reuters make open their style guide.

http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure ... ournalism/

[kennynah]

so...anyone's been to central lib in the last few days...any books at all that's on the shelf worth borrowing??? i dun wana have to walk 20km there for nothing...

[-dol-]

You can ride your trusty bicycle there... followed by a 10km run. You can throw in a 5km swim for good measure

This new book "The Battle for Wall Street" by Richard Goldberg (who has worked at Lehman, Lazard & Wasserstein Perella) is out.

An insider's look at the changing balance of power on Wall street - a shift of power from the sellers (eg. commercial and investment banks) to the buyers (eg. hedge funds, pte equity firms etc).

This is described against the backdrop of the subprime mortgage and credit crisis and the resulting capitulation of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

[millionairemind]

Just finished reading a book SELL AND SELL SHORT by Dr. Alex Elder. You may have come across his books Come into my trading room and Trading for a Living.

I enjoyed the book. It is very clear and well written with discussions on the various exit strategies and shorting strategies. Here's a review I found on the internet which might help.

Hidden Content:

Review of the Trading Book Sell and Sell Short
Introduction

Sell and Sell Short is the most recent trading book from Alexander Elder. As you can imagine from the title, the book is about selling, both as an exit from a long trade, and as an entry to a short trade. However, as all trades require both a buying transaction and a selling transaction (i.e. an entry and an exit), Sell and Sell Short includes information about buying, and a variety of general trading information as well.

As I write this review in 2008, stock indicies and currencies are making new yearly lows, and new short trade restrictions are being implemented. In this bearish atmosphere, selling is a hot topic, so the release of Sell and Sell Short is quite timely, and should be useful for a lot of traders.

Sell and Sell Short is published by Wiley Trading, and is one of the many titles that Wiley Trading publishes on the subject of financial trading.
About The Author

Alexander Elder (professionally known as Dr. Alexander Elder) is a professional trader, a psychiatrist, and obviously an author of trading books. Alexander Elder's previous trading books include Trading for a Living, Come into my Trading Room, and Entries and Exits, all of which were bestsellers within the trading community.

Alexander Elder is a technical trader and a discretionary trader, meaning that he uses technical analysis (charts and indicators), but that he makes his trading decisions in real time, as opposed to a system trader that makes their decisions in the past (further information about these two types of trading is available in my discretionary or system trading article).
Part One - How to Buy, Manage Risk, and Keep Records

The first section of Sell and Sell Short is titled How to Buy, Manage Risk, and Keep Records, and includes three chapters dealing with each of these topics.

The first chapter discusses buying as an entry to a long trade. This chapter covers different types and styles of trading (such as fundamental or technical analysis, and discretionary or system trading), and introduces some of the indicators that Alexander Elder uses in his own trading (such as the Force Index).

The second chapter discusses trading psychology (as you would expect from a psychiatrist), and risk management. This chapter includes topics like discipline, and stop loss orders, and explains two risk management rules that Alexander Elder strongly believes in (the 2% and 6% rules).

The third chapter discusses the importance of good record keeping, and offers a variety of methods for keeping track of your progress as a trader. Topics such as keeping a trading log (or trading diary as it is called in the book), and giving a performance grade to each of your trades, are covered in detail.
Part Two - How to Sell

The second section of Sell and Sell Short is titled How to Sell, and includes three chapters covering selling as an exit from a long trade.

The first chapter discusses selling to exit a profitable long trade. This chapter suggests three technical analysis, but still slightly different, reasons for selling (moving averages, trading ranges or channels, and support and resistance levels).

The second chapter discusses selling to exit a losing long trade using a stop loss order (yes, even professional traders and trading authors have losing trades). Various stop loss related topics are covered, including types of stop loss orders, where to place your stop loss orders, and how to manage stop loss orders (e.g. traling stops).

The third chapter discusses selling to exit a long trade because of market conditions (referred to as engine noise in the book). Different types of market conditions are covered, including technical analysis (i.e. a particular chart pattern), fundamentals (e.g. earnings reports), and external factors such as overly bullish or bearish public sentiment. These external factors are referred to as the market ringing a bell in the book, and as the market speaking to you in one of my day trading quick tips).

Part Three - How to Sell Short

The third and final section of Sell and Sell Short is titled How to Sell Short, and includes two chapters covering selling as an entry to a short trade.

The first chapter discusses making short trades on stock markets. Topics covered include some of the differences between long trades and short trades, and different types of short trades (e.g. trading trend reversals, trend continuations, and even fundamentals trades). This chapter also gives some suggestions for finding individual stocks on which to make short trades, including a brief tutorial on using the software that Alexander Elder uses to find stocks in his own trading.

The second chapter discusses making short trades on futures, options, and currency (forex) markets, and the differences that each type of market involves. The futures discussion covers some of the various futures markets that are available (such as agricultural futures markets). The options discussion suggests that shorting options (i.e. writing options) is the only way to make a profit in the options markets. The currency discussion focuses on some of the pitfalls that await forex traders, and gives the same warning that I give about retail forex brokers.
Example Trades and Charts

Sell and Sell Short includes a number of example trades from Alexander Elder's own trading diary (i.e. trading log). Most of the example trades are on US stock markets, but there are also some example trades from agricultural and commodity futures markets (such as orange juice, and gold).

Each trade is discussed in detail, providing a good understanding of the trade, and also some insight into Alexander Elder's trading style. The charts that are provided to show the example trades are very clear, and include notations from Alexander Elder indicating the main reasons why a particular trade was entered and exited.

The primary subject matter of Sell and Sell Short is selling, but the example trades provide a large amount of additional information (some obvious and some not so obvious). Even if you are not interested in the selling aspects of the book, the information that can be obtained from the example trades is enough of a reason to read Sell and Sell Short.
Writing Style

From a trading perspective, Sell and Sell Short is very well written. Alexander Elder clearly describes the points that he wants to make, providing enough information so that each topic is fully understood. For the most part, the book stays on topic, and follows a logical progression from buying, to selling as an exit, to selling as an entry.

However, from a personal perspective, there is one exception which appeared several times throughout the book. There are more than a few references to various forms of animal cruelty. The references are used as trading analogies, but there is no valid reason for these particular comparisons, as any other analogy would have made the point just as (if not more) clearly. I found that this detracted from the book somewhat, because each time a reference to animal cruelty was made, I was annoyingly distracted from whatever trading information was being discussed.
Conclusion and Recommendation

In conclusion, I think that Sell and Sell Short is a very valuable trading book. It has been written at an obviously appropriate time (the beginning of a significant downward price movement for many markets), and has the potential to help a lot of traders that might otherwise be caught unawares. Even if you do not read Sell and Sell Short in time for this bearish market, there are many bearish markets throughout a trading career, and next time you can be prepared.

Sell and Sell Short includes a variety of trading information, and will be useful to both beginning and experienced traders alike. The book can be read from beginning to end (as you would read a novel), or it can be used as a reference book (i.e. reading only the parts that interest you). Either way, there will most likely be something of value in Sell and Sell Short that more than justifies its cost (the full price is $85, but it can be purchased for much less).

In other words, I highly recommend Sell and Sell Short to beginning traders, experienced traders, and even professional traders.
http://daytrading.about.com/od/learning ... lShort.htm

I was at Kinokuniya this morning and found that this book retails for $127! Luckily, it is available from your NLB

I recommend this if you are new to trading and new to shorting (ie. for ppe. like me )

[kennynah]

and all this while, i thought FHM magazine was produced just for our Singapore market.... that's until.... i read this version...

oh well.... you know what they say... pictures transcend words...