Customer Reviews

ForeX Trading for Maximum Profit: The Best Kept Secret Off Wall Street

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Okay, first some background: I am new to trading forex but have been trading stocks and options for over 5 years. Aspects of the forex market are very intriguing (24 hour trading, a small 'universe' of currencies to watch vs. thousands of stocks/options, leverage, etc.) so I was looking for a book that would tell me more about the forex market and provide a good foundation to trade successfully.

Let me state from the outset that the editing indeed leaves much to be desired. Typos, letters or spaces left out and smallish charts that forces one to bring out a magnifying glass at times. But none of this has anything to do with the value of the content of the book. Anyone dismissing this book simply due to editing are 'missing the forest for the trees,' as the saying goes. But the minor editing blunders are unfortunate and are the reason for only 4 stars instead of 5.

Content pros:
a) Very bite-sized chapters help encapsulate topics nicely. You can focus on one thing at a time to insure that you 'get it' before moving on. And everything builds upon the preceding chapters fairly smoothly, so it works.
b) True to her premise, this is NOT another missive on all the possible technical indicators available to use. (If you want that, I suggest Murphy's tome on Technical Analysis.) Instead, she is clearly outlining some of the key tools that she uses to trade forex and provides adequate reasoning for her choices. She does not dismiss other indicators as not being useful - she simply seems to have found that following a simple system with these tools works for her. And I would have to agree that it is easy to become bogged down in 'indicator paralysis' and I find her simplicity refreshing.
c) For those commentators below that question whether she is a 'real' trader or whether her system can work, I would happily point out that the forex market uniquely offers a wonderful, NO COST way to find out for yourself! Unlike any stock broker that I know, you can open a demo account (or 3 or 5!) with any online forex broker and 1) learn how to execute a trade (it is different than stocks or options in some ways), 2) see whose `trading platform' you like the most AND, most importantly, 3) you can 'play along with Raghee' (or anyone else's strategy) as you read the book!
d) She does a very good job of defining trading styles (scalping, swing, momentum, etc.), links them to what markets that best apply (trending, sideways, etc.) and to which indicators fit each style and market the best. I have not seen any other author put the style, market conditions and tools together in such a clear manner.
e) She does a very commendable job in covering trade and account management. With the high leverage issues in forex, these issues become very critical, more so than with stocks and options. This is typically a boring area for most readers, but ignore it at your financial peril!

Content cons:
a) Other than the known gripes about small charts and some editing gaffs, I really do not have any significant `cons.' (But ask me again in a year once I have traded in a 'real' account for a while! The demo account is doing too well to leave unfunded!)

As you can tell, I highly recommend this book. If you are new to forex, you can buy many books for half the cost of this one, some that are a lot thicker, too! But I doubt that you can find a better book to help you become comfortable with the market, the 'whys' and 'hows' of trading forex, and perhaps most importantly, how to manage your trades and money in differing market conditions.

1. Buy this book.
2. Open a demo account (if you are not already active in forex)
3. 'Play' until you are ready!

What could be better?

After all of the hype that I read surrounding this book, I was pretty disappointed with its content. The charts too small to be read easily, and the spelling and punctuation errors were more than I cared for.

The book does give a brief overview of the Forex market, but I was hoping for something more. The author does do a good job of describing her method of trading the market. I must admit that while I was reading the book, I was thinking that her methods seemed just too simple to be effective. However, the day after I finished reading the book, I found and successfully traded both a swing trade and a momentum trade using her techniques. The results were a gain of 30 pips on the swing trade and 75 pips on the momentum trade! This book has definitely given me another way to look for trades and I will continue to follow her "Three-Step Setup".

Different traders have different styles. Some want a zillion confirming indicators before placing a trade, some prefer playing with indicators to trading, and some indulge in the fantasy of finding the "holy grail" system.

Personally, I've never found anything that beats good ole support and resistance, trendlines, and entering the "zone" by watching candlesticks form and candlestick formations. I pay my bills with Forex, and I trade against the indicators only slightly less often than I trade with them. I often forget to look at them at all because I'm focused on what is happening with the ... PRICE!

The problem with indicators is they tell you what has happened but they make you believe they can tell you what WILL happen. There is a world of difference between looking at a historical chart and watching one develop in real time. If you don't believe me, just place a default slow stochastic on a chart and watch the crosses develop. You'll lose a heap of money in no time at all. Then knock yourself out tweaking it according to any number of holy grail systems. You'll lose another heap of money.

Raghee's system is no different. It looks great on historical charts, but often fails to predict the future in real time.

Actually, it is fairly easy to predict where prices will go in general - assuming no strong support or resistance and no big news, they will usually continue merrily on in the direction they are going. Consequently, it's easy to get into a trade.

Getting out is the trick. And that trick is about experience, psychology, and money management more than prediction.

IMO, the truely reliable tools for trading Forex are simple -- S&R, trend, candle formation, PRICE PRICE PRICE. The systems based on indicators -- Raghee's included -- are simplistic, which is quite different from simple.

Kids, there ain't no free lunch. That's the bottom line.

I swear, I can not understand how anyone could possibly give this book more than a 3 star review at the very most, and that's being generous! The book is simplistic, as if geared towards the mentality of a child. Some of the chapters are no more than 2 or 3 pages long and have nothing of any educational value. I have read all the reviews, as some of the other reviewers have recommended, and have gleaned this much from having done so. The people who have written negative reviews have pinpointed areas of why the book should be used as nothing more than fire-starter. They give reasons for why the book is a waste of time. Just read the other reviews for yourself! However, all the positive reviews merely state the same, general thing over and over--that the reader learned how to trade from digesting this fodder, that it was one of the best books on trading ever written, and that they didn't understand anything about the forex market, even after reading the proliferation of other, expertly written titles out there, until reading this one. But there is very little explanation as to why or how they learned anything from this book, beyond merely reciting what the book jacket already states. I get the feeling that those individuals who wrote posititive reviews on this book didn't even read it, because they're all just repeating the same, generic theme but without giving any specifics.

IMPORTANT: Being on the lookout for other trading books, I regularly trip over this book and notice its reviews whenever I do. It's fascinating to note that if the lastest 2 or 3 reviews are positive, I will not see any NEW reviews for weeks, or months at a time. Whenever someone submits a bad review, however, there is a sudden bombardment of pro reviews that are all, as stated before, brief summaries on how this was a great book but with no explanations. It is as if those mundane reviews were merely placed there to placate any prospective readers in the hopes they would not have the ambition to read more than the first 2 or 3 reviews before deciding whether or not to purchase it. I get the distinct feeling that whenever someone writes something negative about the book, the author has a number of friends and/or associates submit a barage of positive reviews. Since these people have probably not even read the book, the reason as to why those positive reviews are so vague comes into clarity.

I actually just finished reading 'Day Trading the Currency Market', written by a genuine, professional trader, just like many of the other books out there. I've been reading her daily analysis on dailyfx.com since I first got into forex and her track record speaks for itself. Kathy Lien's narrative is clearly geared towards individual traders who are just getting into forex and it provides a wealth of knowledge that the author of this book probably didn't even know existed. I'd recommend that one, among a host of others, before getting this one. If you've already bought this one, as I unfortunately did, compare it and you'll see immediately what separates bonafide authors from fakes and wannabes.

Do yourself a favor and buy a better book that actually talks about something and who's advocates actually pinpoint why they thought that book was deserving of their time. This one certainly was not!

PS I only gave this book 1 star because this site wouldn't allow me to submit anything lower, as in a negative number of stars!

I have read countless trading books, been to all the seminars, and tried alot of software. When the dust settled Raghee's book was still standing. Not to say that the other things did'nt help but this book simplified my trading. Now I know what to look for using the blueprint in the book. The pratical and tactical methods the book has taught me has increased my pip gain tremendously. It is not a magic box, you must be patient and work hard to apply the rules in the book. I still struggle at times, but with all things practice makes us better. Thank you Raghee for making a book that makes sense. Get the book.
Cecil Glenn

First the bad part: Ms. Horner needs a new editor!!!! This book is full every kind of writing error there is - grammer, spelling, syntax, sentence structure - you name it. But once I got over that, I found this book to be quite helpful. The book helped me to refocus on the basics of technical trading; namely, support and resistance, the mental processes involved in entering and exiting trades, and getting confirmation from other indicators before entering a trade. These are not new techniques, but they can be lost or forgotten in the daily grind of trading. The book did introduce me to a couple of new indicators, which I look forward to experimenting with. I am an experieced trader, and I'm not sure if a beginner would get enough out of this book to develop a comprehensive trading technique, but it would certainly help. It is user-friendly and easy to read. In short, it has had a positive effect on my trading.

I waited for the release of this book with much anticipation, expecting it to be an up to date, comprehensive look at how to trade the forex market (especially considering the price tag, which is higher than many of the more in-depth books already out there). With less than 200 pages, the majority of the chapters are only between 2 and 5 pages, leaving one to speculate the book was written in a hurry in order to make some quick money. Ideas were generalized, without the myriad chart examples one would expect to find in this sort of book. Such things as trading setups and targets were calculated soley through the use of Fibonacci and S&R, without taking advantage of consolidation and reversal patterns in order to calculate targets. The author also uses less common indicators and studies than one would expect, but essentially they do the same job as the more common ones (nothing more than personal preferrence here). One can further glean the speed with which the book was written and pushed to market by the abhoring editing job--grammer and spelling errors galore!! Only if familiar with trading terms and ideas will the reader likely be able to unscamble what the author is trying to say where her sentences have fallen apart and been filled with misplaced prepositions.

All in all, the book was nothing more than a whittled down rehash of some basic ideas that have already been repeated ad infinitum in other books. I was truly hoping this would be my bible of forex trading, which would hold a preferred place on my shelf, along with my other trading books. Considering the book's small size, it doesn't even make a good, quick referrence guide as it is so basic. Considering the author claims to be a teacher (mentions having writen the book primarily so her students would have a text to use in her teaching sessions), one would think the practice of trading would have been more succinctly laid out. Even the website is a hollow offering of information that already peppers the Internet, along with the demo account offers by trading brokers and charting companies.

The book is not completely without merit. If you have no idea about what trading even is, the text is a sufficient starter for introducing the reader to the overall concept (thus the 3 stars). If looking for something more, I recommend getting a good book on technical analysis trading. Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques by Steve Nison is also a well deserving classic. It doesn't matter whether the books are geared towards trading forex, stocks or futures. Trading is trading and the technical analysis is applicable to all.

I bought this book right when it was released and I don't usually write reviews of books, but this time I made an exception. I personally found this book to be very helpful and am writing this review more to be a guide to people who are thinking about buying this book or may have already.

First off, I did a google search for the author before I even bought the book and found that she has quite a few websites with quality information. In fact, some of the basics like trend-lines, support, resistance, & fibonacci were thoroughly covered in online videos that were free. (I'll get back to that in a moment.) I appreciated that Ms. Horner gave information like this away as it is commonly found on the web. This also assured me that I would not be burdened with page after page of this type of information in the book. I found the videos after the aforementioned google search at raghee . net.

I will agree with some of the readers who expressed their displeasure with her organization of the book. I can only presume that Ms. Horner is not a "professional writer of trading books" and actually trades, hence her unorthodox approach to the book's organization. While I found the book to be easy enough to follow I can certainly understand those who felt that an astute editor would have guided Ms. Horner better. It was strangely refreshing however, to read a book that wasn't a slick, over-packaged bore of a book that rehashed news and history of the foreign exchange. I for one could care less about such things.

I also agree with the consensus that the book's charts were entirely too small. But I am sure Ms. Horner had little control over this fact. It was difficult to follow some lessons without a clear chart. Some months after I bought the book, a friend of mine who I bought a copy of the book for, let me know that there are larger images of the book's charts are available online. After that, I re-read the book and found the re-read helpful and much more effective with the larger charts which I printed out from the internet. I wish the charts that came with the book (especially at the price!) were large and clear to begin with, but Ms. Horner gets an "A" for effort. I have yet to run across an author who makes so much available online, again, all free. I mention this because making this information available to readers and visitors of her site increase Ms. Horner's credibility in my opinion. The charts were available at the same site. I suspect they are still there.

One of the unique facets of the book was that it was made clear that the strategy could be used in the commodities and stock markets. I also like that there were not a lot of pages discussing economic reports. In fact, Ms. Horner does explain that she is a chartist and as such does not spend time sifting through the details of economic releases. She does spend adequate time explaining which reports effect the forex market and calls their release "hot zones". She goes on to discuss that entries are to be found using price and exits are not based on fixed pips or percents which is a complete departure from what I have read in other books. She also explains that her set up works effectively on intraday and end of day charts which offers a lot of flexibility for those traders who don't have the time to stare at charts during the day but then again, if you want to, you can trade the 30 and 60 minute charts as these are two of her the five timeframes she tracks. She is very clear about the fact that her set ups can be used on any timeframe however she does not used anything smaller than the 30. Frankly, it's all just words until you try it yourself. I have successfully used it on both the daily charts and the 15 minute charts with ease. I am currently giving it a go on the E-Mini market on a five minute chart using her "gauge of the market".

I don't believe I am giving anything away by saying that Ms. Horner's choice of charting tools are trendlines, support and resistance, fibonacci numbers, and certain numbers that she calls "psychological numbers". But by far, the most important tool she shares is an easy to use little gem she calls The Wave. Her explanation that The Wave lets you know when to swing trade and when to momentum trade are the focal point of her approach. In fact everything she does stems from a "clock reading" of The Wave. This tool is amazing and simple to use. No proprietary tools here, in fact The Wave is just three moving averages! I appreciate the fact that her approach doesn't require specialized charts or software although she does express her preference for eSignal charts.

In summary, the short-comings (mainly typographical errors and omissions) of this book are outweighed by the unique approach to the market she teaches. The errors are more an annoyance than they are critical to understanding. Furthermore, the information available at raghee . net supports my confidence in Ms. Horner. I also found a site with articles and videos about her style at tradedirectfx. These sites offer plenty of free resources to anyone whether they buy the book or not. For anyone on the fence, I recommend a visit to the sites I have mentioned.

To anyone who feels they can find her approach explained on the internet already or that the information is too basic, I ask them where they found it and how complicated would you like it to be?! I have read many books on stock, commodity futures, and options trading and scoured the internet for information Yes, her tools are "basic" or as she herself calls "foundational" but her approach and The Wave are totally unique as is her take on swing versus momentum trading using The Wave. The way she puts the "foundational" tools together is what separates this text from others because she shares how she uses the tools rather than just giving you a definition & a lesson on how to draw them like so many other books do. I can only assume that some readers mistook Ms. Horner's efforts to be an end-all, be-all of the forex market rather than one trader's view of the market coupled with her own approach to trading. Just my opinion.

I gave this book four stars because I feel there are aspects of this book that can be better but I hope that Ms. Horner gets another crack at writing her opinions and approach to the market as I find them unlike anything else available right now.

I'm totally blown away by this book. It's going to be my trading bible. It has everything. A trading plan, a q&a with the author, psychology. I was afraid I may get another general book about Forex and market paticipants and the basic indicators. I was happy to find a complete trading plan that takes all the questions out of when to buy, when to sell, how to put in my orders, how to take profits.

The book is written like the author is talking to you and I finished it in 2 days, it's that good but I could have done without the many, many typos.

There's good info here. I know I will want to review some chapters like chapter 10 fibonacci levels and chapter 26 that talks about charting the US Dollar with other currencies. I liked the chapter on prep-work which makes finding trades very simple and fast using moving averages. She teaches how to trade from 5 time frames so I have the choice to play longer term with a daily chart or a short term chart like the 15 minute although she doesn't use anything smaller than the 30 minute chart. I found I could go to even the 10 minute with her Three Classic Tools to a Three Step Set Up. I think what was also helpful is that I thought I would have to get up early or stay up late to trade forex from what I had heard at other seminars I went to but she teaches market overlap and explains that you don't have to which was my biggest worry.

Look past the typos and you'll find good info. Worth a read.

Aside from the editorial errors and small charts...this book is a thought-provoking classic. I believe everyone would like to speak with a successful trader and see what he or she does to achieve that success. I have never come across a book quite like this one. The author thoughtfully teaches you how she trades and shows you exactly what she does to set up the two kinds of trades she watches for, swing and momentum. At first I frankly didn't see what the difference would be since I have not actively traded and actually was more interested in the longer term view. However, the way she explains it, even if you are a longer term trader or investor if you will, one must to learn how to read charts. I was also impressed by her method of approaching news. She shows you which reports move the forex market and how to deal with news which actually was something I used to get caught up in. I feel like I have a plan that tells me what to do and where to go with each trade. I also appreciate that I only have to focus on around four to five trading tools. One can easily get lost in trying to learn or use too many. This has simplified trading for me and also shown me how to find chart patterns in the correct manner. The way she identifies chart patterns is so simple that I think I must be doing it wrong. However, when the trade works I know that I got it right!