The Trading Book

by Anne-Marie Baiynd

For as complex a subject as it covers, The Trading Book delivers a lot of useful information in a clear, concise, useful manner. If you are a trader, or think you want to become one, this book covers everything from basic chart reading to highly advanced trend analysis. If you always wondered how a Fibonacci sequence applies to stock trading, or wanted to know how candlestick charts are used, or what a Bollinger band signifies, Ms. Baiynd has you covered. And when you’ve got all the hard trading knowledge covered, you can tackle the “soft” stuff, like overcoming psychological shortcomings, keeping a trade journal to analyze your performance, and when to trade (or not) based on nothing more than your base emotions. Even though the technical aspects of this book can be daunting at times, Ms. Baiynd softens the blow with plenty of detailed explanatory charts. Her earthy, at time cornball, sense of humor make the reading a lot easier and absorbing the material was at times, even almost enjoyable. For myself, I think this book gets a little too detailed at times, especially when she starts talking about five minute or fifteen minute interval trades (people do that? Really?), but it is easy enough to skim those sections, glean a few pertinent points, then move on to the sections of more use and interest. And unless you are an incredibly experienced trader or some kind of mathematician, I expect you will have to take the tougher sections much slower in order to get maximum benefit and use from the information. (I don’t think any but the most perspicacious readers could digest this book once through – it will require multiple readings and frequent referencing to insure success.) This book is jam-packed with useful information, great lessons and insight, and buoyant enthusiasm and encouragement. I think this is one of the best books on trading there is, so I give it full marks.