Customer Reviews

Spread Trading: Low Risk Strategies for Profiting from Market Relationships

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The book was written 1997, do not get confused with the publishing date of 2003. The printed daily line charts are from 1997 without hardly any description. The same almost applies to the numerous useless pages filled with tables of historical spread trades that (maybe) could have been done between 1981 and 1996. This book neither contains stategies nor addresses risk at all. Furthermore the book is full of sentences of the following kind: "Computer generated Numbers. Most traders have a library of proven computer numbers. They may be applied with success in spread trading. The only caveat however, is that they usually are not self-contained systems and should be used along with the several other devices I have spoken about."
My advice: Walk away from this trade!

The title is very misleading due to the fact that this book contains no trading strategies. It does, however, do a good job of talking about the psychology of trading (one of the most important aspects). The interviews are good but contain no real practical knowledge. In my opinion, save the money and go for another, perhaps more advanced book if you're concerned with trading strategies. I will not even recommend this book to the beginner for it requires a broad knowledge of how the trading floor works. This book mentions little about value (the MOST important thing about legging and trading spreads). As far as spread trading goes, this isn't the one. Dan Vassallo (New York Cotton Exchange).

If I had wanted a psychology book I would have bought one! Mr. Abell is obviously obsessed with the subject as there is almost nothing in this book that gives the nuts and bolts of spread trading. 45% deals with the psychology of trading, 45% of it are interviews with "successful" spread traders, and the remaining 10% if you discount the charts deals with spreading. Save your money.

The title of this book is quite misleading. There is not much information about the actual trading of commodity spreads, and more about general commodity trading. The chapter about investor psychology is pretty good. Don't be misled by the title. If you're looking for in-depth info on spread trading, you would do better to keep looking.

There's not much content worth your money or time in this volume, whether you're a seasoned pro, a raw trading newbie, or somewhere in between.

A large part of Spread Trading is given over to interviews, which illuminate very little other than a preference among his subjects for trading spreads with trend-following strategies. Sadly, Mr. Abell does nothing to illuminate this further. If you're a trend-follower already the info is nothing new, but if you're not the author fails to provide any tools for understanding why the strategy appeals or how to build a rudimentary system. That's a big shortcoming.

The rest of the interview content is equally tepid. In short, Abell is no Jack Schwager. His interviews aren't quite worthless, but there's very little to take away here -- for either beginners or professionals. If you're looking for interviews with traders who have made it, save your money for whatever copy of the Market Wizards series you don't already own.

Another large chunk of the book is taken up with charts and data tables detailing seasonal spread relationships. This might be of some use, but to make that determination you'll have to fire up the ol' CQG (or testing platform of choice) and test whether or not these relationships still hold. There's no discussion at all about how this data was, or might have been, converted into a profitable trading system. That's fine if you already know what you're doing, but if that's the case you don't need to make a donation to Mr. Abell. The data is intriguing, but if you have a charting service (and a backtester) you should just take a look at some spreads year by year on your own. If not, it's probably over your head until you develop a little more as a trader.

I'm a spread trader myself, and while I dutifully read my partner's copy of this book from cover to cover, I wouldn't recommend you do so. Buy this only if you're willing to pay the cover price for that seasonal data. At least you'll get a nugget of a trading idea there -- although one that requires a great deal of polish.

This disappointing book was clearly produced in a great hurry. It basically consists of three parts:

The first part is a long and general discussion of the psychology of trading, that has nothing to do with spread trading in itself. I found it disappointing that a book titled 'Spread trading' should devoted 4 chapters to such very general and elementary ideas.

The second part is a compilation of charts of various spreads and tables of spread trades, all of which were produced by Moore Reseach Center. By the way, this may be the most useful part of the book, as it puts all of MRCI's proposed spread trades in one compact place.

The last part is a set of interviews with a number of spread traders. I found the interviews to be out-of-focus and non-illuminating compared to those in Schwager's 'Market wizards' books.

I'm still looking for a good book devoted to a detailed study of spread relationships. The best discussions available of spreads remain those in Schwager's book 'A complete guide to the futures markets' and various paragraphs in Teweles and Jones 'The futures game'.

As a professional bond and grain spreader, i found this book to detail the key points required for profitable spread trading. Abell distills the essentials(both the psychological and tactical necesities of a viable spread trading plan)for market success.

I must disagree strongly with the last reviewer. This is an infomed,practical and well researched book,revealing the author's authors considerable knowledge of the market "REalities" of spreading.

The book was written 1997, do not get confused with the publishing date of 2003. The printed daily line charts are from 1997 without hardly any description. The same almost applies to the numerous useless pages filled with tables of historical spread trades that could have been done between 1981 and 1996. This book does not contain stategies at all. Furthermore the book is full of sentences of the following kind: "Computer generated Numbers. Most traders have a library of proven computer numbers. They may be applied with success in spread trading. The only caveat however, is that they usually are not self-contained systems and should be used along with the several other devices I have spoken about."
My advice: Walk away from this trade!

The focus of this book is to prepare you for trading spreads both psychologically & technically. It is not a cookbook advising how much ammo to buy or when to pull the trigger, but the guidelines and advice it gives are invaluable. I consider it the best book available on spreading futures.

I'm a professional spread trader on the floor of the CBOT and found Spread Trading to be right on the money.I spread Bonds to Ten Years And Grains;not only is this book to the point-no filler-but also covers the all important issue of trader psychology.Howard abell is known on the trading floor and this book reveals why.