Long/Short Market Dynamics: Trading Strategies for Today's Markets (Wiley Trading) (Hardcover)

by Clive M. Corcoran (Author)
Key Phrases: closing bias, key risk ratios, lower quantile value, Newmont Mining, Lehman Brothers, Wall Street (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Hedge funds are now the largest volume players in the capital markets. They follow a wide assortment of strategies but their activities have replaced and overshadowed the traditional model of the long only portfolio manager. Many of the traditional technical indicators and commonly accepted trading strategies have become obsolete or ineffective.

The focus throughout the book is to describe the principal innovations that have been made within the equity markets over the last several years and that have changed the ground rules for trading activities. By understanding these changes the active trader is far better equipped to profit in today’s more complex and risky markets. Long/Short Market Dynamics includes:

• A completely new technique, Comparative Quantiles Analysis, for identifying market turning points is introduced. It is based on statistical techniques that can be used to recognize money flow and price/momentum divergences that can provide substantial profit opportunities.
• Power laws, regime shifts, self-organized criticality, phase transitions, network dynamics, econophysics, algorithmic trading and other ideas from the science of complexity are examined. All are described as concretely as possible and avoiding unnecessary mathematics and formalism.
• Alpha generation, portfolio construction, hedge ratios, and beta neutral portfolios are illustrated with case studies and worked examples.
• Episodes of financial contagion are illustrated with a proposed explanation of their origins within underlying market dynamics

From the Inside Flap
Market forces in the 21st century have become more titanic, diverse, subtle and multi-faceted than ever. Clive Corcoran deftly explains the reasons behind the paradigm shift and offers an abundance of practical ways to combat and profit from it. I was late in submitting these comments because I kept getting sidetracked testing ideas inspired by the text! There's no need to fear that it's not you father's market anymore when you're armed with this kind of information." - Art Collins, professional trader, and author of Beating the Financial Futures Market

"Corcoran's in-depth knowledge of financial markets underlies a talent to express technically advanced concepts in accessible, yet thorough terms. His book is very carefully researched and beautifully written." - Professor Carol Alexander, Chair of Risk Management and Director of Research, ISMA Centre, Business School, University of Reading

"Clive Corcoran has written an excellent book, backed up by solid research and informative examples. This is one of most illuminating works on trading techniques written in recent years. His incisive commentary of automated trading algorithms alone is worth the cost of the text. This is a must read." - Alan Farley, Editor/Publisher, Hard Right Edge

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 358 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (March 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470057289
• ISBN-13: 978-0470057285
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #522,895 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative and unusual, October 4, 2008

By	TheLyingThief (seattle, Wa United States) - See all my reviews

Most financial market books, especially those on TA, seem as though addressed to prospective targets: "Suckers, use my superdooper-specialized proprietary method, trade a lot, get my newsletter, and open an account at my very own, highly recommended XYZ brokerage firm." They are, generally, composed of descriptions of too-well known indicators, replete with glowing, yet unsubstantiated, accounts of the profits the author has obtained by using them. Even the more serious attempts, like those of John Murphy, are merely encyclopedic gatherings of indicators, with little effort made to determine their objective utility or profitability; or, like Kaufman's, while addressing a more intelligent, educated technician, too compendious. Sadly, the better books present the reader with barely more than introductions to approaches that are mathematically and computationally more rigorous; and, while they may also indicate further directions of study, do little in the way of providing it.

This book, I am happy to say, avoids all of these objections.

The author discusses and describes a number of statistical methods, and develops them into tools with which to measure and identify market development and direction. And though his instruction is often brief, it is to the point. This adds a certain density to the presentation, but it IS presented. As an example, he uses a quantile segregation of price-data to reduce the adverse effects of noise in a moving average. He indicates in two sentences the formula to use in EXCEL to obtain it. Testing of these tools is, of course, the responsibility of the reader, but there is no arguing the fresh, original character of these methods, and the patience with which the author explains them. If nothing else, it stimulates the imagination. Wait, that is everything, isn't it?

Very highly recommended.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pretty decent book on the latest innovations in trading, February 14, 2008

By	Anshuman Mishra "Ivontu.com" (Bombay, India) - See all my reviews

I'm not very sure I agree with the other reviewer's assessment of the book. Luckily for me, I read the book before coming across the review and corresponding rating on Amazon.
This book provides a very decent overview of the latest thinking about market dynamics. Trading systems being what they are, mechanical representations of underlying market mechanisms, it really helps if the (would-be) trader were to understand the reasoning behind system internals. This can further lead to a proper grasp of "how, when and which": how to tweak a system, when to tweak it, and which system to modify.
I heartily recommend this book to all those who are interested in exploring the fascinating world of markets that lie underneath our trading systems. Just don't expect to get rich quickly by reading this.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original work - Truly Great, March 17, 2008

By	bbensaid "bbensaid" - See all my reviews

This is a piece of original work that you rarely see in financial books. I find the author's web site a great pratical complement to the book. The combination gives you the theory and pratice to profit in the market. I have to respectfully disagree with the bad review given before. You simply have to be the right target for the book; more on the advanced side. Please preview the book for yourself but I assure you that the content and ideas are simply original and made me money so far.