Just came across an interesting website, http://www.texasholdeminvesting.com . I’ve been playing Texas Hold’em poker for a while now via Facebook/Zynga and unlike past experiences I now really enjoy my time playing it. I’m not sure why in the past I didn’t catch the holdem bug. If I try to think about it then maybe it’s a developmental thing. In the past I was attracted to holdem, and did reasonably well but found it too similar to trading on the emotional side and therefore a bit of a drain while now that aspect disappeared and I can play it for hours.

Anyways, as the title of the post and the website indicate there are countless parallels between investing / day trading and Texas Holdem Poker. In fact the Texasholdeminvesting website came up with a book dedicated to identifying the similarities. I’ve just downloaded it (free intro), and looking through he’s got most of the topics covered, like: managing emotions, thinking in probabilities, performance analysis, and bankroll size and position sizing. I’m hard pressed to find a game with more similarities with trading than poker. Depending on your personal traits poker can be a good way to sharpen some trading related skills or just have some fun during market downtime.

H/T to Meir.

P.S. If you’re playing texas hold’em and haven’t tried Zynga I think it’s one of the nicest free fake money poker out there that I’ve come across. If you’re on my facebook list give me a buzz if you want to play a few rounds.

Tags: Buzz, Day Trading, emotions, experiences, facebook, game, market, parallels, performance, performance analysis, position sizing, probabilities, stocks trading, texas hold em poker, texas holdem poker, trading, Zynga

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my list of Best Trading Books which I recommend to traders looking to up their game. And there’s a good reason for that, I didn’t see anything interesting out there that would make it as a “Top Trading Book”, that’s till I recently came across this fantastic book. First I need to say this isn’t a paid or incentive driven review, I didn’t get a free book, and I have absolutely no affiliation with the writer. I just think that One Good Trade is a damn good trading book which almost any trader can benefit from.

I did skip the first couple of chapters (mostly prop trading related) but then instead of skimming through to the end like I would do with most new “get rich quick” / secret formula trading book for stocks / futures / options and all other instruments on the planet, I actually started seeing some really good material in it which kept me reading. It’s like one of those gem of a trading book that Dr. Brett Steenbarger publishes (his 2 books Enhancing Trader Performance and The Daily Trading Coach are absolute must read).

The author of One Good Trade, Mike Bellafiore covers almost everything you can think of in terms of the journey to becoming a good trader. From specific advice on Tools of Success:

To real world examples and explanations on sound trading building blocks such as

And more advanced stuff such as reading the tape, high frequency trading, when to press your winners etc.

Even if you’ve read dozens of trading books in the past (who hasn’t..) I would still encourage you to pick up this one.

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I remember I bumped into Phantom of the Pits mini book document (110 pages) a couple of years ago. I don’t even remember when or where exactly. Anyway I thought it was kind of cheesy and with a weird mystery created just for the hype. Over the last 2 days two individuals mentioned it to me again, both of whom are not the noobs falling for hype type of people. So I thought I’d check it out again, and there are indeed some interesting ideas in there that made me look at some aspects of trading in a slightly different way. For example this paragraph:

What criteria in your day-trading plan says you are right? Most say what determines you are wrong. Not us! We only want to know the criteria for being right. Okay, for us our program says, “If in the first half hour the market opens lower than yesterday and moves higher, expect a move above the prior day’s high within the first half day of trading.” Our program also says the position is only correct if the market stays in the prior day’s top half in the first half hour. Our last criteria for the trade is that it must show a 3-point profit by the close. Now, I ask you, what is your next step?

If you haven’t read it before I would recommend going over it if only to get some new perspectives on things. It’s very easy to find the file PDF online, it’s free and widely available so just google it.

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Tags: Day Trading, Education and Training, PDF, phantom, phantom of the pits, pits, Trading Systems

Nice uptrend the whole day yesterday. I think I read somewhere the market did about 15% from the recent low point till yesterday. How often can that happen right? Anyway there were plenty of candidates to choose from yesterday which moved into positive territory almost immediately. This was one of those days where you just had to let them run. This is something that’s easier for me now, being (half) asleep from around 12pm EST. The only downside to yesterday was that I was trading small.

I’m in the process of winding down for the year, last home stretch ahead of my wedding early next month. By end of this week my family would have landed here so basically this is my last working week for 2008. I’ll leave the full summary for later on but it’s certainly been an interesting, challending but also rewarding year. Could have done better but could have also done a lot worse. Lots to think about in terms of lessons learned from this year about what worked, what didn’t and how to implement those takeaways in future years. Hmm I just stopped and read what I wrote above, and damn, even after over a year I still haven’t gotten rid of this silly corporate talk lol. This is probably one of the main themes underlying 2008 for me, a process of transition and adaptation. Can’t say I regret it one bit.

Tags: 2008 summary, Day Trading, personal, trading career

בפוסט זה הובאה תלונתה של המשתמשת טלי שנכתבה בפורום בורסה בדה מרקר עם הכותרת “שיטת המסחר של טריידנט – מאיר ברק”. אולם תוכן הפוסט הוסר בעקבות איומים של מר מאיר ברק מחברת טריידנט וקולמקס

מאחר ואני לא חברה שמתמקדת בפרסום ויחסי ציבור ותשלומי שירותים של אחרים אלא סוחר יומי מקצועי שמרוויח מהשוק אז אין לי זמן מיותר להתעסק עם מכתבי האיומים של מר ברק. מי שירצה יוכל למצוא את הפוסט המדובר במקומות אחרים באינטרנט. זה לא ממש קשה. על כל אחד מוטלת האחריות לבדוק במה הוא משקיע את כספו. בכל מקרה בתחתית הפוסט ישנם לינקים למקורות שונים שבדקתי שניתן ללמוד מהם, רובם בחינם.

לשוקלים להירשם לקורס מסחר כלשהו יש לי עיצה מקצועית על סמך הנסיון שלי במהלך השנים:

אני ממליץ לכל מי ששוקל ללמוד בקורס מסחר פרקטי כלשהו לבקש מהמרצה לראות את תדפיס חשבון הברוקר שלו למספר שנים על מנת לוודא שהמרצה אכן יודע את העבודה. זה יכול לחסוך הרבה אי נעימויות, גם לכיס, וגם מפחי נפש. אני נתקל באופן קבוע במתחילים שפונים אלי בבקשת עזרה לרוב אחרי הפסדים כבדים ולימוד לא נכון של המקצוע מקורסים ומרצים מפוקפקים.

אם ניקח דוגמא מהתחום הרפואי, המשפטי, התעבורתי, וכו’ בעלי מקצוע מקבלים תעודה מסמיכה שמאשרת שמותר להם לעסוק בתחום ויש להם את הידע הנדרש והם עמדו למבחן. יש מישהו שמוכן ללכת לניתוח על ידי רופא שיש ספק אם הוא אכן קיבל תעודה ומורשה לעבוד בתור רופא? בתחום המסחר, התשואה מדברת, יש הוכחות בדוקות של תשואה חיובית לאורך שנים – מעולה. אם אין הוכחות בדוקות  – אל לו למי שמפסיד את כל כספו במסחר מניות להתלונן אלא על עצמו. אין כאן עניין של פרטיות שכן המרצה מתיימר להציג עצמו ולשווק את יכולתו תמורת תשלום ועל כן מוטלת עליו האחריות להביא אסמכתאות התומכות בטענותיו. כל אחד יכול לייצר קליפים של ווידאו, סיפורי גבורה ותדפיסים של אקסל, המבחן האמיתי זה תשואות מוכחות מתדפיס הברוקר ולאורך זמן.

דרך מומלצת לדעתי ללמוד לסחור אם אין לך גישה לסוחר מקצועי או מאמן אישי למסחר שילמד אותך את השיטות שלו זה מהמקורות הבאים, כולם מספקים תוכן טוב ובחינם:

קורס מסחר יומי בסיסי – עשרה שיעורים במגוון נושאים בחינם לגמרי

וידאו לימוד מסחר והשקעות, 4 וידאו חינם כולל אחד חדש כל כמה ימים

אסטרטגיות מסחר כמו פריצות וניתוח טכני, האתר הזה בתשלום אבל הם נותנים נסיון חינם ששווה לנצל.

מסוחרים אמיתיים כמו זה לדוגמא

ספרים מומלצים על מסחר

כל אלה נותנים בסיס טוב על שוק ההון, מניות ושיטות מסחר שונות, שממנו אפשר לבנות ולהתפתח הלאה. בין אם זה בעצמך ותהליך לימוד שמבוסס על עקרונות מוצקים או בעזרת מנטור / מדריך אישי למסחר שנותן קואוצ’ינג במסחר יומי אבל המקצוע העיקרי שלו זה מסחר.
ותשמרו טוב טוב על הכסף שלכם.

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I’ve been asked many (many) times which books I recommend for aspiring traders (either for day trading or swing trading ). So here’s the list of the best trading books I can recommend.

Remember, this is not in place of a lot of hard work, no book, even the best one, will hand you a complete trading system or edge that you can just start applying tomorrow. You still need to learn how too apply theoretical trading advice in real life in your chosen market. This can be done either by learning from a mentor as I’ve done in the past with a few who contacted me or through repeated practice and careful and meticulous market and self observation. So the following list are good sources of starting points but your journey as a trader will just begin.

Day Trading Methods Books

Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom 

One of the most useful books for day traders. Covers the all-important position sizing, risk management,biases we have as traders, some basic trading methods and other useful information. A must read.

Techniques of Tape Reading Street Smarts: High Probability Short-Term Trading Strategies
 
This books covers the personal story of the author in his development as a trader, once you get past that there are many day trades examples, charts and strategies you can use to build on and develop your own style.

Tools and Tactics for the Master DayTrader: Battle-Tested Techniques for Day, Swing, and Position Traders 

Although this book is quite old it is still in my opinion one of the useful ones to have. Not for the speficis techniques but for the mindset and setting the scene on how to think like a trader.

Trading Psychology Books

Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline and a Winning Attitude 

Another must read book, good trading requires very high dose of mental discipline, even with the best trading rules in the world, if you don’t follow your plan, keep the demons at bay and remain focused through then you won’t succeed. Highly recommended.

Trading to Win: The Psychology of Mastering the Markets 

Ari Kiev worked for many years with many traders and you can see this in the writing, many important aspects of traders behaviour, mindset and approach to trading are covered here.

Enhancing Trader Performance: Proven Strategies From the Cutting Edge of Trading Psychology

A fantastic book Dr. Brett, it takes some experience to really fully appreciate the material in here but still I would recommend it to both beginning and intermediate traders.

Trading Systems Development Books

The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies

The description is pretty self explanatory, a good desk reference for various strategies. Of course you can’t expect to just copy one of the methods here and make money immediately. It’s all about how you tweak, adapt and make the trading rules your own.

Trading Systems That Work: Building and Evaluating Effective Trading Systems

A very good book on how to evaluate your trading results and use them to further improve your edge and squeeze more profits out of the same trading ideas.

Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns

Another good reference book that covers chart patterns, from my experience many of these work across timeframes, the art of reading charts is a crucial one for traders. Recognizing patters, understanding what the probablities are for future price action, including when the pattern works and doesn’t is of the highest importance.

That’s it, this is my answer to those looking for trading books to learn from as a begginer or even for intermediate traders looking to up their game and improve their profitability. If you have any questions or looking for reading material on a specific topic feel free to drop me an email (see sidebar for contact details) and I’ll try to answer the best I can.

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I saw on MaoXian‘s chat transcript that some people were looking for budget scanners and screeners for intraday day trading so I thought this list may be useful for someone. Other than the QCharts> scanner which is quite good I also use these free ones. I now use QuoteTracker instead of QCharts and Trade-ideas, see link below.

Nasdaq Unusual Volume
Quote.com Unusual Volume
Nasdaq Pre-Market Most Active
MSN Money – Use the Delux to refine your search.
Small Cap Scanner
Prophet.net

Well that’s it. It’s of course much easier and time efficient to use a top of the line tool for getting a job done but that’s obviously not always possible.

Let me know if you know of any other useful free scanner or screener.

- Edit -

To try out Trade-Ideas you can take it for a free test drive and see how useful it is for yourself.

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