Customer Reviews

Currency Trading and Intermarket Analysis: How to Profit from the Shifting Currents in Global Markets (Wiley Trading)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book will be helpful to those seeking an introduction to the interrelatedness of the currency, commodity, equity and fixed income markets. The book is well written and easy to read. However, I would not suggest the book to a person with no technical, economic or financial background.
I have followed Mr. Laidi's currency outlook for over a decade now both on TV and in print, and can honestly say that I have yet to come across another analyst with the foresight of Mr. Laidi (he called the bear market and USD collapse when the rest of Wall St. were still believing in an unending bull market).
Although many of his correlations referenced in this book are obviously backward looking, it does teach traders to take a global market perspective before narrowing down to specific currency pairs. I felt his explanation of the FED, under both Greenspan and Bernanke, really did a good job on a very difficult topic, as many traders, like myself, really don't understand the different weapons the Fed and other central banks posses.
Equally useful and informative was his chapter on the effect of interest rates, there isn't enough space for me to go into it, instead I will let you gather the pearls of wisdom for yourself.
Mr. Laidi finally concludes that some of the historical tendencies are currently being challenged and that only time will tell if a new relationship has emerged or if history will again be proven right. Pick up this book if you want to read the work of an original thinker at the top of his craft. Whether you trade FX or another market, I think you will benefit from Mr. Laidi's insight.

I've read and flipped through a number of currency trading/forex books, both as I was learning the trade and in my continuing education. Most books on the subject seem to be put out to sell with little regard to original content and value-added information. They typically spend half the book going over the very basic of foreign exchange markets and lingo - basically repeating what every other intro-forex book says, and then spend the next half of the book either going over general trading areas - such as trading systems or technical areas of trading. There is little to no value-added information/analysis for the forex trader, unless you are a complete newbie.

This book is different - and more in-line for someone who has read up on forex basics and/or has begun to dabble in forex trading and wants to begin to understand the history of different forex markets (as in their past movements), drivers of said markets, and intermarket connections. Unlike other books on the subject, there is not 200 plus pages of forex definitions and filler - it dives straight into valuable content (chapter 1 is about gold and the dollar - history, linkage, trends). It then goes on to cover oil and its linkage, the dollar's historic performance (and the drivers/causes) vs. other major currencies and other macro and micro drivers of the currency markets. This is not a trading book per se (it does not tell you how to trade various markets) - but a great supplement to the trader's understanding of the markets he or she trades in. If you trade forex but don't understand the concepts in this book, my bet is that you are a losing trader, whether you trade long-term or short.

Overall - the best book out there I have seen about the currency markets, their drivers, correlations/linkage and past performances. After reading you'll have a better understanding of the major currencies' past performances and cyclical behaviors, what drives these cycles, their linkages to one another (as well as to gold and oil), as well as understanding the impact on currency markets of central bank decisions and the trends of other markets (e.g. equities, commodities). Highly recommended for anyone currently or looking to trade forex, or someone who just wants to understand the currency markets, especially in relation to global economics/events.

Work on intermarket analysis is quite descriptive and not very analytical. The classic Intermarket Analysis: Profiting from Global Market Relationships (Wiley Trading) suffers from that weakness and so does the current book. The current book is not bad, as long as you know what you're getting.

The first part deals with historical events, with a focus on the 1997 to 2007 period. It is always good to know history, but there is absolutely no guarantee that the intermarket relationships present at that time are going to be valid in the future.

The second part deals with current relationships; yield curves, US trade and budget deficits, and commodities. This is quite interesting if you are not at all familiar with the ideas. So this section might serve as a primer. What is really odd is the very strong US focus here. Currency trading always consists of two currencies so it absolutely does not make any sense to focus on the US alone. For this reason I give the book only three stars.

I have written several short reviews on trading books. The best way is to compare the score on the books I've read. Many reviews on amazon.com are just glorious 5 star reviews. I use all five categories; sorry but everything isn't "great". Books rated 5 are very good. Books rated 4 are good solid books well worth reading. Books rated 3 can be bought by some people who read a lot or have very specific needs. Books rated 1 or 2 I would not recommend buying or reading. Naturally all in my humble opinion.

Anyone who is serious about forex needs to read this book and follow Ashraf's analysis via ashraflaid [...]. Ashraf's career spans all aspects of the currency markets (from assessing risk for the World Bank to analyzing bond markets) and he truly knows what makes the markets tick.

After reading and studying his material you can watch the currency markets fluctuate based on the forces that exist in the financial world (and understand why). Gold, Oil, Bonds, the Stock Markets and World Events are all catalysts for the key driver of currencies "RISK" vs. "Risk Aversion". Ashraf explains to the reader which way the pressure moves based on these interrelated markets.

The core of this book is studying the correlations that exist in the financial markets and how they affect currency movement. Ashraf explains that these correlations come and go and that good trading is based around understanding the current set of data and the correlations prevailing. If you like politics, economics and trading then this book is a must read and re-read.

Lots of great insights into what drives the FX markets in this book. It is more geared to understanding strategic FX direction rather than providing tactical trading decisions.

Most of the book is on the U.S. dollar, so if you're looking for any real insight into the other major currencies, you'll be a little disappointed. The first 100 pages or so are a very boring play-by-play of the last few decades, trying to relate things like oil crises or interest rate increases to changes in the dollar. It was so bad, I almost stopped reading it, and put it on the shelf with so many other disappointments. There were a few nuggets of information and insight in the middle of the book, but then the last 1/3 of the book drifted back into play-by-play descriptives again, where very little insight or value is given.

Despite trying to relate interest rates, oil, inflation rates, etc. to currency movements, it seemed that though he would give an "event" followed by an effect on the dollar, there was another case in a different scenario where that the same "event" had no effect, or even the opposite effect on the dollar. Sometimes he pointed that out, and sometimes he ignored that in order to make another point. In other words, it's interesting, but there's no cause and effect that's reliable enough to make money from - so why bother.

One final point I want to make. Somebody should take the publisher, Wiley Trading, to task over the charts in their books. I've bought many of their books, and they make no effort to produce charts that are readable. In this book there must be a hundred charts, and 2/3 of them are multi-line charts where all the lines are grey. Useless. I can't tell the line representing Gold from the line representing the dollar, from the line representing interest rates. Useless. Their trading books are a premium price, yet they do a disservice to the author and reader by not including either color, or at least dashed, dotted, solid, thick, thin, dark, light, lines so that we can tell some of the lines apart.

Summary: A few interesting nuggets, but I spent too much money and spent too much time reading, for the little value I got.

A great book. Although there were similar concepts from John Murphy's Intermarket Analysis books, there were some new concepts that I learned and I use in my trading now. Highly reccomend.

well, i have to say this . Ashraf's Book is the best intermarket analysis i ever read in my whole life, the strategies and ratios that he write makes u understand how the markets move and how there is a big relation ships in all the markets

i have been watching Ashraf since i start to trade in forex market about 6 years before , and he is the only one who come up with new things, strategy, ratios and the most interesting is how he explain what is happening in the market and what will happen as well

Also i got the chance to meet Ashraf many times and i am glad that we became friends and as a result he is my TEACHER :)

keep it up Ashraf as always


Nour Eldeen M. Al-Hammoury
Chief Market Strategist
GFC Markets

This books cuts straight through to what moves markets and how markets 'think'.

A welcome piece of work to serious analysts and traders.

KT

Finished the book and I must say I have been enlightened. I will definitely need to review it again to hammer home the concepts, but I feel like this book has given me a deeper understanding of why financial markets behave the way they do. I wish I would have read this before learning to trade spot Forex two years ago because it would have shortened the learning curve and I would have avoid many painful leassons.