I am the first to admit that I read too many books on economics and trading. Instead of watching the latest version of “America’s Got Talent”, you will usually find my nose stuck in some trading or economics text, or magazine. I come from an academic family, so reading was deeply ingrained in my daily habits since I was a youngster.
In an earlier post I recommended the following books for your perusal:
Dr. Burton Malkiel, “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” (efficient market theory)
Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, “Security Analysis” (value investing, fundamental investing)
Benjamin Graham, “The Intelligent Investor” (value investing, fundamental investing)
John Murphy, “Technical Analysis of Financial Markets” (technical trading)
J. Welles Wilder, “New Strategies in Technical Analysis” (technical trading)
Martin Pring, “Introduction to Technical Analysis” (technical trading)
Dr. Bill Williams, “Trading Chaos” (chaos and fractal theory)
Benoit Mendelbrot “The Misbehavior of Markets” (chaos theory)
You might notice that many of the titles I recommend are not necessarily trading methodologies I endorse or even think are terribly valid. But you cannot read too much, you cannot learn to much, and many traders don’t appear to have a solid fundamental background on this art we call futures trading. I suppose you could be a great trader without a grasp of the history of the great thinkers in our business, but learning about our profession would seem to me to an essential prerequisite, at any level of trading.
Two great books that I neglected to include are:
“Reminicences of a Stock Operator“, Jesse Lefevre
“How I made 2,000,000 in the Stock Market“, Nicolas Darvas
These two books are accounts of the trading activities of two traders from the mid-twentieth century, but there ideas and methods are as valid today as they were during their trading times long ago. You owe it to yourself to read all of the volumes I have mentioned, as you can only become a better trader.
One very recent volume that has had a deep effect on my trading is by John Carter.
“Mastering the Trade“, John Carter
This book has a veritable encyclopedia of trading ideas from the mind of John Carter, a well respected trader of our time. He and his partner, Hubert Centers, run a great website at TradeTheMarkets.com that put out both paid and free videos every night. I do not miss a night of watching these videos, and relate to Hubert’s videos. Though John is one of the most insightful investors of our time. Take some time from trading and learn the past and present of our profession. You can only get better at trading, there is no downside.
