Customer Reviews

Mastering the Trade: Proven Techniques for Profiting from Intraday and Swing Trading Setups (McGraw-Hill Trader's Edge Series)

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I like John Carter - I like him a lot. But there were some disappointments for me in this book. Namely, several chapters are of little or no use without proprietary indicators and downloads. Repeatedly throughout the book, Carter casually refers the reader to his website but nowhere does he mention that they are very, very expensive. The indicators are typically $400 to $500 each - you can buy a package of them for $1500 to $2000 - and the downloads require you to sign up for an expensive subscription to one of his website trading products. I still like Carter but, in my opinion, his credibility suffered a bit from these omissions.

It's the Market Internals, Stupid

Trading books, they're a dime a dozen. If only their cover prices reflected that reality. Mastering The Trade, by John F. Carter, Published by Mcgraw-Hill Trader's Edge is an example of the exception that proves the rule.

Carter, who is a CTA, trader, writer and trading educator, effectively communicates his strategies, methods and insights in this 400 page book.

The book is divided into Three parts:

In Part One, Carter explains hardware requirements, market mechanics, general market theory, trading psychology and finally, the all-important subject of interpretation of market internals. Begining traders will find all of these sections to be of value. While even experienced traders will greatly benefit from Carter's discussions of trading psychology and market internals.

Part Two examines Carter's specific set-ups for futures, equities, forex and options. Clear directions coupled with informative diagrams leave little question as to how he trades his set-ups. Carter coveys the reasons he pulls the trigger, and perhaps more importantly, the reasons he may let a set-up pass.

Part Three covers preparation for the trading day, creating and executing a trading business plan, thoughts on how to fine tune your trading and even a self-evaluation tool helping traders to hone in on the best markets to trade for their own personalities.

This trader/reviewer wishes that he had the knowledge that Carter imparts regarding reading and interpretation of market internals when he began trading. Carter lucidly explains use of the Tick, the Trin, the TICKI the Premium and other indicators which allow the trader to interpret the health of the market, and make decisions based on fact rather than feeling. Carter's set-ups are simple and effective when evaluated in the context of market internals which he explains clearly. Finally, the author's advice on market psychology is sterling.

This book covers new ground, offering both new and experienced traders the opportunity to add effective weapons to their informational arsenals that can help them win in their daily assaults on the market.

There are at least 10,000 trading books out there. I know because I have probably read half of them. I also believe I have learned something from every one of them. Most of the books are like Doctors, they specialize in one area or another. This book, "Mastering The Trade" is different. Its the "General Practioner" that really knows what he is doing.

John Carter really covers enough ground to help a trader get profitable. He covers all areas of trading - hardware, software, psychology, basic mechanics of markets, and most importantly a traders business plan. Just those items alone more than cover the cost of this book, but then he also adds about a dozen market set-ups. Mr Carter does not just show one or two of each set-up like most books, he shows dozens of each example. Some more profitable than others, but enough to give you a good feeling of what he is trying to explain.

While I do believe this book alone will not make you a great trader, I know it will help you in your journey. This is not an absolute beginner book, you need some market knowledge to get through this comfortably. With that said, I think this is one of the best books out there on trading. I am giving it to my son who has recently become interested in trading after he learned about compound interest. Watch out world, because he is only 14 and is going to start much better prepared then the rest of us!

One last note about this book, you will not read it and become a better trader. Learning to trade is like learning to drive a car. You can't read a book and then go out and drive successfully. You have to practice. You have to see whats working and do more of it, and you have to see whats not working and do less of that. And most importantly you have to do it enough so you get to the point where you feel comfortable with anything the road (or market) throws at you.

Good luck.

This book really hit home with me and my own trading. The psychological stuff was great and I loved the detailed business plan. I also like how John emphasized that there is nothing new in the markets. There are no tricks. The key is to take setups that have worked in the past and update the methodology to fit current market conditions. He goes through extensive setups, some that are his, some that are his trading partners, some that are posted in other forums, and shows traders how to best utilize them in various market conditions. (When should you go all in and all out? When should you scale out and trail a stop, etc.) Although I wouldn't use all of the setups, I found 3 that I liked and have been using them with success. Downside? I wish there was more "basic" information such as information on candlesticks, but overall it was one of the better books I've read on trading. The author also has a nice writing style which makes the book a "good read."

The majority of books and other materials on day trading and/or swing trading can safely be classified as snake oil, not deserving of even one star. This book is not snake oil, but it is not a classic, either. The strengths of this book are the fact that it is written by someone who obviously is a trader. The chapter on TICK, Trin, and other tools for determining the underlying strength or weakness of the stock market is very good. The section on psychology offers good advice, though little that has not been done better in THE DISCIPLINED TRADER. Nevertheless, some of the strategies presented in other chapters are written rather ambiguously (esp the chapter on "bricks"). The gaps chapter offers little that I haven't seen elsewhere. And, perhaps most disappointing of all, there is no evidence presented whatsoever (backtesting) that the strategies actually work.

I was excited to receive this book because it is written by a seasoned professional and as such carries a lot more credibility than one from someone who never actually managed money. I am a money manager and systems developer myself and have managed huge positions and had many hundreds of clients. The first few chapters of the book cover some basics particularly those relating to psychology and setting up to trade. All of it is good. The section on computers is as would be expected for a book published in 2006. Then the book gets into some areas of trading. Chapter 5 is excellent and covers various breadth and/or market internal measurements. I found this chapter to be worth the price of the book as I have always traded with breadth and it was very nice to catch some differt viewpoints and ideas. John Carter is not a systems trader and I am. I code everything and test it extensively. Mr. Carter is a discretionary trader and as I started to code his methods (Part two) I found them to not hold up very well to the scrutiny of computer analysis. The concepts are still of value though, so I still recommend it as excellent reading and a wide array of excellent trading ideas that could be built on. Many times it is the process in the thinking that is of more value that the content itself. So, if you are inclined to purchase the book to find instantly useable trading ideas, you might come up short. But, if you want something that might inspire some of your own brilliance, of course, you may just find a jewel or two. Section three of the book covers more on planning, psychology and the game of trading. This is an excellent book for any level of trader.

First of all, please do not underestimate this review..even though it is my first one and even though it comes out from Saudi Arabia!
I didn't want to write a review at all because I thought others would probably figure out what I found in this book and write it. however, I was irritated by the last review and want just to name an example of how far from the truth, the word "honest" is.
When we read about an indicator established and "proven" by a writer and a trader you and I expect it to work... of course not 100%, we all know that, but certainly not less than 50% so:
The "Scalper" explained here has less than this ratio..
I have tested the indicator using excel workbook "very easy by the way" using historical data of 2000 bar--5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour and 24 hours and here are the interesting results "for 24 hours":
***73 losing trades for 35 working ones using exactly his setup!!!!! ***
With other timeframes, results were very similiar..
For those of you who already bought the book, test what I am saying before starting realy depending on this book. For others who still think, A word of advice: don't buy it! I doupt all his indicators after that.
Furthermore, the author very uncommonly states he never use stops with this indicator "and sometimes with others" when trading intradaily -less than 60 minutes- , never trail stop "which he also makes with other indicators", and never takes a partial profit until the reversal "close" signal is finally there!! Just go ahead and test how many winning trades with his system turned into a big loss, when you follow these rules...I have learned a very beautiful rule written by a much better author
"A. Elder": "a profissional trader will never let a winning trade turns into a losing one!"
Nevertheless, the chapters about seting up the hardware and the software, in addition to others about trading plan were good!
P.S.
When I enter a trade at 1.2054 and exit at 1.2153, I get a gain of 99 pips and not 119 as mentioned in page 219 in his book!! my stop at 1.2134 has nothing to do with my exit! When writing a book and illustrating one of our trades as an example, do we calculate or we are just supposed to COPY what is already there in our trading records ?!! Has the author been calculating the result, while he was writing the book?!! Honest ? I doupt.

Why three stars instead of zero (which one might have expected me to give it after reading what I'm about to write below)? Because Carter's an effective writer and says some things that make sense, even a lot of sense at times. But as the title of this review suggests, I'm puzzled by how Carter expects us to take this book seriously when at his website, [...], he's peddling someone else's (not even his own!) "black box" system (for a definition of "black box," see Wikipedia: [...]; in general, when applied to trading, it's a proprietary program that one relies on to indicate when to buy and sell and whose dictates one follows without worrying about what criteria it uses to make its decisions, which are kept under lock and key by the creator of said system).

In the video located (as of this writing, on 6/16/10) at [...], at around the twelve-minute mark, Carter fawns over the "Wave Indicator" developed by "Rodney," which is on sale at half price for a mere $747 (see 24:27 into the video). Why would a supposedly world-class trader steer the visitors to his web site to someone else's black box trading system? Doesn't this reduce, or at least call into question, his credibility as an authority on trading? Everybody's looking for the trading "Holy Grail," and apparently Carter believes this other guy's system is just that--or at least enough to ask his followers to shell out $747 for it. Why waste our time asking us to read this long tome when all he has to do is tell us to buy this other guy's system and blindly follow what it tells us to do in order to make a bundle of money?

Well, Amazon invited me to write a review about this book.
I must give it 5 stars because I gave other books on trading which were not that good 5 stars as well.
I bought this book based on the reviews already written here.
And yes, I was quite delighted. I liked the chapters on psychology very much. I'd like to cut these chapters and paste them into Vadim Graifer's book "Techniques of Tape Reading", and delete his chapters about his losing experiences as a beginner. That would be the perfect trading book for me.

The setups, they're okay. But I'm using none of them since I got my own pair of setups. But they're a great starting point for someone who's traded with no setups at all.
There is one reviewer who's concerned that Mr. Carter might be blabbing away too many secrets. Don't you worry about that. Like William Gann said: a chemist's biggest secret won't make the carpenter any wiser.

You shouldn't take over Carter's writing one-to-one. I didn't like what he said about Moving Averages and Stop levels. If you use a technical stop be sure that you really want to lose that much money. As a scalper for years now, and quite successful, his suggestions were beyond my comfort level. You gotta find out for yourself how to fine tune your system. I've found out for myself that I am not the kind of a trader who goes for the big moves. Use Carter's suggestions to create your own trading system. This book will definitely help you. Actually there were some ideas that I could use to improve my trading.
All in all, Mr Carter is very (!) generous in sharing information and knowledge with the reader/trader. There's sure something for everyone which can be used to make money right away.
But only experience will make you a better trader.

Im not going to write about the topics in this book, as you can easily find out by reading it. I will, however, give you my honest opinion of this text. There are also plenty of other good reviews you can read to get a synopsis of this title.

The book is logically written and easy to follow. You can easily conceptualize some of his techniques but wont know if they hold any truth until you put them to the test. Many reviewers have backtested his setups and claimed them false or invalid. However, we also have to remember that some setups we backtest and have great results with dont fare well in the real world. So, the backtest argument goes both ways.

The best way to put this book to the ULTIMATE test is to simply use his setups by following them to the T in the real world with REAL MONEY. Put real dollars on the line and you will see if any of the ideas hold true.

Well, that is what i have begun to do. After reading this title, i quickly put 3 of his setups to the test and traded them word for word with minor adjustments on stops and entrys.

I used Pivots with DDM successfully and made enough money to pay for this book a hundred times over.

I used his ping pong plays and made money 75% of the time.

I also used his HOLP and LOHP setups and avoided a costly mistake in going long CIT before the 80% drop just 2 wks ago.

So far, i can say that this book is worth buying and having a look at. You have to try his setups and really see for yourself if they work or not.

He lays out a business plan for you to follow...of course you can tweak it to your liking and preferences.

Although he does emphasize futures trading alot, you can apply it to anything like an ETF or some other instrument.

All in all, i have yet to try his other setups but if 3 of them are working for me, thats all that will make this 40$ buy worth it for me. Even if i got one good setup out of it, it would be worth it...because most trading books are BS and a waste of time.

The only reason why i havent rated it 5 stars is because i havent had the time yet to trade all the setups that i like. I chose 5 out of the 10 setups and want to give them equal chance. Because i had success with the ones i tried so far, i will rate it 4 stars.

will update my review again in a few weeks.