The Electronic Day Trader: Successful Strategies for On-line Trading (Hardcover)

~ (Author), George West (Author), George Piecznik (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Most of us have been conditioned to approach the stock market as a long-term proposition. Many of the bestselling investment books coach readers to seek value in the best companies for long periods of time. Day trading, a recent phenomenon brought on by the reform of the financial markets and by the growth of online trading, goes in just the opposite direction. Instead of buying and holding stocks for years, successful day traders make money by dipping in and out of the market in a matter of minutes, finding profit in the tiny fractions between the bid and asking price of a stock or by catching the ups and downs of stock prices, which are driven by everything including the latest news from CNBC or speculation on what Alan Greenspan ate for breakfast.

In The Electronic Day Trader, authors Marc Friedfertig and George West explain the rationale behind day trading and offer strategies that can help you become successful at this fast game of speculation and timing. The authors write, "Day trading appears so deceptively easy, yet in reality it is a never-ending challenge. It is a game, an opportunity to match wits against the majority and thereby prosper. Day trading the stock market is the ultimate opportunity to speculate and the ultimate game."

The book goes into great detail about how the various stock exchanges work and shows how to get direct access to the NASDAQ through various electronic trading systems. If you're looking for an investment book that will help you build a retirement portfolio, look elsewhere. But if the daily fluctuations in the price of a stock make your heart beat faster and if you're seriously interested in honing your skill as day trader or want to become one, The Electronic Day Trader is definitely worth a look. --Harry C. Edwards

Product Description

Marc Freidfertig is the managing member of Broadway Trading LLC, a brokerage firm specializing in online trading, where he has trained hundreds of day traders to cut out the middle people and earn superior returns trading listed securities. Mr. Freidfertig earned his MBA from Columbia Business School, and has also worked with First Boston Corp. and Morgan Stanley. He actively traded index futures as a member of the New York Futures Exchange, and was a member of the American Stock Exchange for eight years, where he supervised and trained traders and was himself one of the top traders.

George West is the president of Broadway Consulting Group as well as managing member of JGM Securities LLC. Mr. West has traded stocks and options on major exchanges and was an options market maker on the American Stock Exchange. While a trader with Spear Leeds & Kellogg, he handled the order flow of large institutional investors. Mr. West graduated from St. Lawrence University and, with coauthor Marc Freidfertig, offers popular seminars on electronic day trading.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade; 1st edition (May 31, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070158088
• ISBN-13: 978-0070158085
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (142 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #882,571 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars essentially obsolete, May 6, 2001

By A Customer

This book is essentially obsolete just three years after its publication. Stocks are now traded in decimals, and the spreads on heavily traded stocks are now almost nonexistent, sometimes being less than one cent a share. Consequently, you can forget about any of the strategies or information regarding "pocketing the spread", "getting between the spread", etc. With the proliferation of ECN trading, the influence of the market makers in a stock has been markedly reduced. In a stock that trades 80 million shares per day, a market maker with a 100,000 share block is not going to be able to move the stock significantly, and ECN trading can overwhelm his influence. Likewise, information gleaned from the Level II screen, while still useful if one knows what to look for, is no longer the Holy Grail. Also, day trading firms, like the authors' "Broadway Trading" are on the way to extinction, now that some big online brokers offer direct-access trades for less than a quarter of what day trading firms charge, as well as offering free Level II quotes and other information not available to the day trading firms.

While the book contains a few nuggets of trading info, it was not written in a logical, easy to follow manner. As has always been the case, aspiring traders need to study the markets intensely and develop their own trading techniques; they cannot expect that any book will teach them how to be successful in a field where very few people ever succeed.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes Difficult To Follow...But Some Useful Information, December 25, 1999

By A Customer

Although the writers clearly understand the subject matter well, conveying the information in easy to understand language is sorely lacking throughout much of the book. It is difficult to figure out exactly who the authors intended the audience of this book to be, as some sections seem to be written only for highly knowledgeable and experienced traders, but other sections are down to earth and offer clear understandable concepts. Most of the book is not really for the novice.

Basically, I didn't get as much as I wanted from the book, but I know more than when I started reading it.

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Rulebook, Look for a Good Playbook to Complement It, December 17, 1999

By	DT (Santa Monica, CA) - See all my reviews

As a relative newcomer to trading, I find that The Electronic Day Trader does an excellent job of filling in a lot of holes in my understanding of who the players are and what the playing field looks like in the trading world, particularly the world of day trading. It was a quick read and also serves me well as a reference book for the stock market. This book emphasizes what I believe to be the most important lesson of successful trading: a strong commitment to money management principles. The best books on trading that I have read make a point of punctuating this point as a key to successful trading.

I recommend this book to anyone who needs a RULEBOOK to help learn what you need to know to trade. If anyone needs a good PLAYBOOK of successful trading strategies, take a look at Cooper's Hit and Run Trading. It stresses a lot of momentum based strategies that are laid out in a simple, step-by-step approach. These two books have made me a happy trading camper!