Customer Reviews

Trader Vic on Commodities: What's Unknown, Misunderstood, and Too Good to Be True (Wiley Trading)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Having read both of his prior books numerous times, which were trading concept educational, this is a total disappointment. This book should have been a junk mail flyer promoting an investment package or direction to an informational website of which we all get far too many.
The book is 194 pages, the first 34 of which give some meager background on commodities investing. Page 35-194 (the end) is nothing but promotion of why to invest in the Standard and Poor's DTI INDEX ... an index of commodity trading he created and is compensated for. It contains pages and pages of supporting statistics to induce one to purchase the index. There is not even acknowledgement of incredible new tax advantaged products such as the Swedish Bank's Jim Rogers Raw Materials Index offerings. The index may actually work, in fact, it wouldn't even surprise me if it did, but to have to PAY for the right to learn about it is a sorry promotional use of the "Trader Vic" identity ... which is assumed to be one of trader education, not self promotion.
Having purchased some 100+ books from AMAZON since its inception (mostly of investment and computer topics), this one is the first I will have ever returned!
It troubles me to take the time to rate a book poorly, but to make people pay for a sales pitch, rather than at the promoter's expense, is something these publishers need to cease ... this one obviously fell for the marketability of the "Trader Vic" brand.
A great disappointment indeed!

Most if not all of the reviewers have missed what IMHO is the most valuable asset of the book: Victor's model.

For those of you who have learned about break-out trading systems, Donchian-style models, and moving average cross-over models, Victor's patented models (CTI & DTI) are a great place to start if you're looking for insight into how to design a trading model. In the book he delineates why and how he made certain trade-offs in creating his model.

I believe this is an Intermediate-level book, however the aspiring trader can use Victor's models as a starting point to create your own robust model to trade the commodity markets. The DTI for example, is passive Long/Short and is rebalanced monthly. As an exercise, see what you can do to trade it more actively.

You can hear Victor in his own words in two podcasts that I recorded with him in June 2009 and January 1, 2010. They are also available at MartinKronicle on iTunes.

August 2008: The master (and yes, Sperandeo is truly a master) truly stumbled here. The book glosses over commodities and pushes the Sperandeo managed Rydex funds RYMFX; RYMTX; and RYMZX all of which strangly can invest 25% in a uncontrolled cayman islands company? He endorses the end-all be-all S&P DTI indicator, which is supposedly takes into account inflation, commodities, and stock prices (long and short).

As of August 2008, the featured Rydex funds are doing horrible, one can only feel sorry for the master trader Sperandeo, since his indicator is (at this time) performing very poorly.

This book is 75% analysis of a long/short commodities/financials index and unfortunately only 25% explanation on the workings of commodities. Was mislead by the title but some usual excellent insights from Vic outside that.

To me the book seems a promotional tool for the commodity index that Sperandeo devised.

Don't be trapped in your own intuition about commodities, read it fist and think later

I was interested in the DTI previously, because I want to utilize a long/short portfolio approach to my commodites trading. But the information I found from S&P was confusing. This book explains not just how the DTI (and the CTI) work, but why they work, and how to take the same rebalancing and diversification techniques and apply them either individually or as an overlay to my equity exposure. If you just want to day-trade and scalp ticks, skip this book. If you want to build a fluid portfolio of commodities exposure, don't miss it. And as in his first two books, I always enjoy Sperandeo's macroeconomic approach to the markets as much as I do his simply technical tools. Methods of a Wall Street Master remains mandatory reading for anyone who needs to learn the tricks of the trade...this book is for those who want to move beyond that.

I found this book to be very informative. Besides revisiting the 2-B rule, Mr. Sperandeo's Diversified Trends Indicator looks to be a very powerful tool. I haven't completely grasped all of the details yet, but I think after rereading it again I will be able to incorporate it into my investment strategies. If you want a simple how-to book on trading this might not be for you, but if you want to learn in detail about a way to add alpha to your investment portfolio this is a must-read.