Mastering Futures Trading : An Advanced Course for Sophisticated Strategies that Work (Hardcover)

by Bo Yoder (Author) "The word speculator comes from the Latin meaning "to spy out..." (more)
Key Phrases: payout cycle, payback cycle, payout environment, Stochastic Oscillator, Dec Jan, Mastering Futures Trading (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Skilled stock traders and investors are increasingly turning to futures trading to augment their overall performance. Mastering Futures Trading introduces these traders to proven and popular Strategies, concepts, and methods for becoming experts in this high-potential, highly leveraged game. Unique in its unflinching look at the realities of futures trading—both the highs and the lows—this clear and accessible book covers how to trade hot new single-stock futures, proven futures trading strategies, blow-by-blow examples of futures trading in action, and more.

From the Back Cover

[BACK COVER]

[CATEGORY] Finance and Investing

[HEAD] A Clear-Eyed Look at How to Win--and More Important, Keep From Losing--In the Futures Trading Arena

Futures trading is among today's most highly leveraged, potentially profitable financial pursuits. It can also be one of the most frustrating. Mastering Futures Trading is a short course for minimizing that frustration--by learning the rules, discovering how to profit from those rules, and consistently using futures market cycles to your advantage.

Filled with easy-to-follow directions on what a futures trader must know and do to make money in virtually any market environment, this step-by-step introduction to successful futures trading features:

• Chart-based techniques for determining which markets have the highest probability of moving--and which side to take
• Market-proven strategies for minimizing risk exposure--the only variable over which you have complete control!
• Blow-by-blow examples of futures traders in action, maintaining their focus as they confront and overcome unexpected roadblocks

The futures trading business is incredibly competitive, potentially lucrative, and--when all is said and done--a lot of fun. But, just like any other dog-eat-dog business, you'd better take your fun seriously if you intend to survive. Let Mastering Futures Trading introduce you to the realities of futures trading, both the highs and the lows, and arm you with everything you need to make futures a profitable component of your overall trading program.

[FLAP COPY]

"All the skill and experience that a market master brings to bear still cannot deliver any certainty about direction due to the random nature of price movement. What the master has that the novice lacks is a powerful edge, an analysis structure to make order from chaos and ensure that there is a positive expectancy for every trade that is taken."

--From Chapter 1

Mastering Futures Trading explores the strategies, concepts, and methodologies you need to know to become a successful futures trader. Written by Bo Yoder, a veteran of the global futures trading marketplace, this no-nonsense book provides you with the tools you need to spot futures market trends, identify pending rallies or pullbacks, and put your money on the line only when you've uncovered what appears to be a firm directional bias.

Whether you are new to the futures market or a veteran looking to update your techniques and tactics, look to this authoritative book for:

• Pre-trade strategies for developing a trading and risk management plan that fits your style and personality
• Guidelines for understanding and drawing on numerous styles and strategies, and knowing which style to use in any market
• Swing trading techniques for anticipating--and taking profitable advantage of--spikes and intraday whipsaws
• Physical and mental techniques for relieving the stress of the trading day--without losing your edge
• Examples of how to use the time and sales window to more accurately determine a market's underlying supply/demand balance

You're reading this book because you've experienced the dangers of buy-and-hold investing, of letting ups and downs of the market dictate your financial future, and think you can do better. But leaving the easy path of passive investing in your rearview mirror requires that you assume a new level of responsibility--for how, when, and where your money is invested, and for proactively beating market averages both over the short and long term

Mastering Futures Trading will show you how to successfully assume that responsibility. Let this all-inclusive guidebook tell you what you need to know to quickly separate winning futures trades from losers, steer around the profit-killing tricks and traps that exist within every trade, and enter each day with the confidence borne of knowledge--and the wisdom borne of experience.

[Author biography]

Bo Yoder is an internationally known trading instructor and the lead trader and instructor for RealityTrader.com, an online educational forum on trading principles, methods, and techniques. A frequent contributor to Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities, Active Trader, and other industry publications, Yoder also writes for popular websites including TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com. He has worked with hundreds of individual traders and market professionals as a risk management consultant and trading mentor.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (May 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071420347
• ISBN-13: 978-0071420341
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #646,202 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars watch a good trader at work, June 14, 2004

By	R. B. Geller (Fairfax, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is the best of trading books: First, it has excellent theory about set-ups, trading psychology and identifying good and bad streaks in the market for your individual style.

Second, it follows the author and lets you watch over his shoulder as he executes trades over the course of some days in 2003.

The emphasis is on S&P and treasury futures but the principles apply to any futures trading.

The prose is very readable. The author explains where to place stops, and focuses on his style which is largely swing trading -- selling from support into resistance or from resistance to support.

It has helped me trade better and it will help a lot of people who are getting started in futures trading.

28 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars *** LOOK ELSEWHERE ***, July 16, 2004

By	IZZRAINERZZ (OHIO) - See all my reviews

I wasted my money on this book, but I didn't waste my time -- at about page 40, I started to skim thru the rest of it.

The book contains the usual caveats and recommendations concerning money management, except for a "Rule of 10," which
really did not fit in. Basic explananations included are chart patterns, support and resistance, and candlestick reversals.

Then, fully 94 pages are devoted to a self-indulgent log of 6 weeks of trading by the author, listing subjective interpretations of events in making trading decisions. How we are to become "masters of futures trading" by reliving this undisciplined hodgepodge, I do not know.

If you have not already done so, investigate the books of Perry Kaufman, Alexander Elder and Jacob Bernstein, and get your time and your money's worth.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than average, February 13, 2006

By	ProTrader (USA) - See all my reviews

The most interesting concept in this book is the discussion of Payout and Payback periods. Every trader will be able to relate.

There seem to be times when nothing goes right, and other periods where one can do no wrong. The author stresses recognition of the phase that you, and the market are in, and alter trade size and agressiveness accordingly. Traders at all levels may be aided by taking this approach, or at least giving some thought to whether one is in sinc with the market or not.

The balance seems to be geared toward the novice trader, and is not a bad addition to a newcomer's trading library. Certainly, many, many worse books are read each day.