Smarter Trading: Improving Performance in Changing Markets (Hardcover)

by Perry Kaufman (Author) "This book is about how to improve your trading in the stock, foreign exchange and futures markets..." (more)
Key Phrases: Hang Seng, Profits Risk, Best Choice Index (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
As a direct result of economic globalization and computerized trading, today's professional stock, bond, and futures traders face a career-making--or breaking--challenge: to track and immediately comprehend the bewildering place of market, volume, and price changes, then some how profit from this unexpected volatility. In Smarter Trading distinguished author and trader Perry Kaufman helps harried financial pros cope with financial market uncertainty by creating a ``robust'' trading model that adapts quickly to market changes and yields stronger, more predictable results. And he shows them how to make sense of the current barrage of sophisticated, hi-tech trading technologies--neural networks, fuzzy logic, expert systems, chaos, and fractals, to name a few--and align these weapons with their own trading strategies.

About the Author
McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070340021
• ISBN-13: 978-0070340022
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #326,832 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stop Loss vs Risk, August 18, 2003

By	Georgina "tville" (san francisco, ca) - See all my reviews

The person who said that Kaufman does not believe in stop losses is quite INCORRECT. The whole purpose of this book is to weigh a stop loss against a possible incorrectly placed volatile sale.
If anyone trades with a regular basis they know the horror of being 'stopped out' because of volatile price swings. Kaufman helps by correclty analyzing the benefits of stops vs losses showing how mechanized systems for stops have their own pitfalls.

Kaufman's whole treatise on RISK is really worth the price of the book. Understanding risk and it's effect on your psychology is an important and very valuable treatise. Kaufman does a very good job on the subject. Also of benefit, is the Adaptive Moving Average algorithm. While this is also part of Metastock
having the formula is invaluable for those of us who want to modify it.

The weakest part is the computerized system analysis at the end is old and rather simplistic; I would not recommend it. Some of the ideas are interesting but Pardo's book is much much better.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Computerized System Development, March 12, 2002

By	Jack McGrath (Cyberworld, USA) - See all my reviews

This was a good read on trading methodology and system development. The best concept is that of the "unable" trade, which is where your system gives a buy signal but you can not get your order filled. This is a double edged sword in that you would get filled on trades where a buy was signaled, but the trade results in a loss and not on trades that would have been highly profitable. The end result is hypothetical returns that are higher than they should be. Probably why so many successful paper systems fail when applied.

Now, aside from the trading methodology which is well written, there is a lot and I mean a lot of Programming Language in the text. I don't want to take away from the concepts which were great, but if you are not planning on writing a computerized trading program you may want to search elsewhere. On the other hand, if you are working on a "Black Box" trading system, I would highly recommend this text.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good info except for the "high tech" section at the end, August 23, 1999

By A Customer

Perry Kaufman seems like a very knowledgable technician. I think he should write more books. "Smarter Trading" is a good read, especially the discussion on stop-loss orders and market noise. The adaptive moving average is far superior to other MA's. You can skip the neural network and machine language garbage. Neural Networks are nothing more than the ultimate curve-fit.