Customer Reviews

Computerized Trading: Maximizing Day Trading and Overnight Profits (New York Institute of Finance)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is written by 21 authors guided by one editor. All these 22 people are certainly experienced traders, but unfortunately most of them are inexperienced writers. When I got this book in my hands I was initially excited and impressed. As a matter of fact, I thought that this book may be the best one I saw so far: it is thicker than most other books on trading (415 pages), it seems to be written in unusually professional and serious language, and the table of contents promises that all substantial aspects of trading and portfolio management are covered.

However, I was quickly disillusioned when I started reading it. The thing is that each of 21 distinguished traders got a task of writing a 15-page essay on topic suggested by the editor. They did it to the best of their abilities, but unfortunately they did not succeed in creating anything better than a collection of articles on the subject of investing, which makes the impression of a bunch of trees with no forest in sight. There is no consistency in this book: some things are repeated over and over again whereas others are mentioned but never explained, some things are unnecessary and uselessly detailed, whereas the others are too general. The chapters do not provide sufficient background and support for each other as they should. Some chapters are excessively academic; some are totally out of date as they advise to call your broker to buy or sell securities, or give detailed explanations how to write a program to build a plot of a technical indicator which now can be downloaded for free from many different web sites. Even though everyone has a good chance to find a few useful tips in this book (I, for instance,liked chapters on strategies of entering and exiting the market), the overall useful outcome is quite disappointing and way below not only of what these authors could potentially teach the readers given their experience and knowledge, but also below the average level of literature on investing. Therefore I could not give "Computerized trading" more than a 2 star rating, and I strongly recommend against buying it.

This book offers valuable information on a variety of critical subjects for both the beginning trader and traders with extensive experience. As an edited book, it assembles the ideas of many authors and presents the information within an overarching framework of four sections: (1) Basic Trading Skills and Methods, (2) Testing and Evaluation, (3) Assessing the Market and Yourself, and (4) Advanced Indicators and Forecasting. As with any edited book containing chapters from various authors, each with unique knowledge, perspectives, and writing style, the chapters are somewhat heterogeneous. While the reading would have been smoother if one author had written about all the subjects covered, the collective expertise offered by the various authors is far more important. Mark Jurik has made a significant contribution to the field of computerized trading by editing this very valuable resource book and making the collective experiences and wisdom of many experts available in one book.

This book is broken up into sections where many different traders share their views on trading using fundamental and technical tools. This is not by any means a comprehensive book on technical analysis. However, it is a great read in order to get the "Big Picture" in the world of trading. Although I enjoyed this book a great deal, someone serious about trading with technical analysis should read Murphy's "Technical analysis of financial markets" or Pring's "Technical analysis explained".

I thought the book presents a well organized discussion of the important aspects of good trading. There are four parts, each with its own introduction and checklist style summary. Each author discusses the aspect of trading he knows best, and all together, the book offers much collected wisdom. Actually, considering the how many contributing authors there are (20 of 'em), the material is surprisingly well integrated.

The chapters progress toward more advanced topics, beginning with entering and exiting strategies, then money management, performance assessment (both system and trader), and on to multi-time frame strategies, market analysis, nonlinear modeling and forecasting.

I thought the tone began light because the material gets heavy soon enough. It struck me as a thoughtful approach to get both beginners as well as seasoned traders reading on the same wavelength.

There is one thing in this book I've seen nowhere else. An appendix discusses how financial tick data is created, transmitted to a user's computer, and processed by the computer. During this explanation, you're given "Consumer Report" style questions for you to ask when evaluating different data feed vendors. Considering how expensive choosing the wrong data feed can be, this alone makes the book worth its price.

If you're looking for a new magic technical indicator for instant riches, you'll be disappointed. There're no "secret" equations or "get rich quick" strategies here. Instead, there's lots of practical ways to improve trading systems. And there's lots of choosing to do: picking the right chart analysis, trading style, software, books, data feeds, ... as well as some optional sophisticated state-of-the-art techniques for the extra "edge". Of course, the advanced stuff take time and effort to implement. Rome wasn't built in a day, ya know.

I liked it. Can you tell?

Jack Schwager's books on the wizards offered more insight into trading successfully than this feeble attempt. Even Joe Krutsinger's book provided more information. The author's messy editing job only creates more confusion and chaos for the reader. More thought and preparation should have gone into this book. It could have been informative.

Overall, this book is good. So there are some missing graphs. So there are some misprints. So there is discontinuity because of the different writing styles of the different contributors. So what? Reading this book is like going to a conference and hearing a lot of different speakers. Like any conference, not all the speakers are good... This book is packed with a lot of information and anyone with an open mind can learn a lot from it.

An excellent book to actually help you trade. Tons of tips on how to enter and exit trades. Nice money management ideas. Actually tells you how to place stops. While getting into technical indicators, it is not thorough at all. John Murphy and others are needed for that. Alot of the book is very mathematical and advanced. All types of material on building and evaluating trading systems. Nice chapter on the psychology of trading. Suprisingly the S&P futures is described as having a $500 multiplier. Hello! Wake up! Overall an excellent book, well worth the money.

This is a great book!! Do I think is a 100% perfect organized trading manual? Not even close. But it is packed full of information and has different point of views from different authors. If you like a chapter you can read more of the authors books. Or if you really disagree with something you read you can just take it for whats its worth!

This work, ..., is very useful to those of us who are setting up trading systems based on Neural Nets or using other Cybernetic techniques. Yes the writing style may not be the best, but this does not take away from the high quality of the technical material, which is what is really important.

Mr Jurik has some very interesting Low-Lag technical indicators available on his web site....

If you are attempting to design a profitable trading system which uses technical analysis for Stock or Futures trading, this book should be on your shelf.

An excellent book for the new trader-- as well as fundamental reviews of technical analysis for the more experienced. Jurik's contributors deal with everything from technical analysis to timing entry and exit points-- to managing funds for trading-- and the psycology of trading from a very personal standpoint... a must have for the traders' bookshelf