Recommended Reading 07-24-2014

Readers repeatedly ask me for book and article recommendations, especially new traders who are interested in learning more about trading and investing.  Here are four new book recommendations from my personal finance library, all written by Jack D. Schwager. A complete list of all past recommendations is available on the Recommended Reading page.

Brian Johnson's Recommendation

Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders

The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders

Stock Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Stock Traders

Hedge Fund Market Wizards: How Winning Traders Win

by Jack D. Schwager

All of the Market Wizards books contain valuable insights and war stories from some of the top proprietary, equity, and hedge fund traders.  Not only are these books informative, but they are enjoyable and even inspirational.  They contain invaluable lessons on what to do and even more important, what not to do.

Most of these traders have failed in spectacular fashion at some point in their careers and the insights gained from their experiences could save you thousands and thousands of dollars.  The key is to take these lessons and make specific, objective changes to your investment process to prevent similar mistakes in your own trading.  Great stuff.

 Amazon.com Description of Market Wizards

The world's top trader's reveal the secrets of their phenomenal success!

How do the world's most successful traders amass tens, hundreds of millions of dollars a year? Are they masters of an occult knowledge, lucky winners in a random market lottery, natural-born virtuosi—Mozarts of the markets? In search of an answer, bestselling author Jack D. Schwager interviewed dozens of top traders across most financial markets. While their responses differed in the details, all of them could be boiled down to the same essential formula: solid methodology + proper mental attitude = trading success. In Market Wizards Schwager lets you hear, in their own words, what those super-traders had to say about their unprecedented successes, and he distils their responses down into a set of guiding principles you can use to become a trading star in your own right.

  • Features interviews with superstar money-makers including Bruce Kovner, Richard Dennis, Paul Tudor Jones, Michel Steinhardt, Ed Seykota, Marty Schwartz, Tom Baldwin, and more
  • Tells the true stories behind sensational trading coups, including the one about the trader who turned $30,000 into $80 million, the hedge fund manager who's averaged 30% returns every year for the past twenty-one years, and the T-bond futures trader who parlayed $25,000 into $2 billion in a single day!

"Market Wizards is one of the most fascinating books ever written about Wall Street. A few of the 'Wizards' are my friends—and Jack Schwager has nailed their modus operandi on the head."
--Martin W. Zweig, Ph.D., Editor, The Zweig Forecast

Jack D. Schwager Amazon.com Biography

"Jack Schwager is a recognized industry expert in futures and hedge funds and the author of a number of widely acclaimed financial books. He is currently the co-portfolio manager for the ADM Investor Services Diversified Strategies Fund, a portfolio of futures and FX managed accounts. Previously, Mr. Schwager was a partner in the Fortune Group, a London-based hedge fund advisory firm, which specialized in creating customized hedge fund portfolios for institutional clients. His prior experience includes 22 years as Director of Futures research for some of Wall Street's leading firms and 10 years as the co-principal of a CTA.

Mr. Schwager has written extensively on the futures industry and great traders in all financial markets. He is perhaps best known for his best-selling series of interviews with the greatest hedge fund managers of the last two decades: Market Wizards (1989), The New Market Wizards (1992), and Stock Market Wizards (2001). The latest book in the series, Hedge Fund Market Wizards is due to be released in May 2012. Mr Schwager's first book, A Complete Guide to the Futures Markets (1984) is considered to be one of the classic reference works in the field. He later revised and expanded this original work into the three-volume series, Schwager on Futures, consisting of Fundamental Analysis (1995), Technical Analysis (1996), and Managed Trading (1996). He is also the author of Getting Started in Technical Analysis (1999), part of John Wiley's popular Getting Started series.

Mr. Schwager is a frequent seminar speaker and has lectured on a range of analytical topics including the characteristics of great traders, investment fallacies, hedge fund portfolios, managed accounts, technical analysis, and trading system evaluation. He holds a BA in Economics from Brooklyn College (1970) and an MA in Economics from Brown University (1971)."

Conclusion

The Market Wizards books are among the best selling, most informative, and most entertaining trading books ever written.  Schwager specializes in the interview format and his experience allows him to identify the pivotal questions that will elicit the most valuable and enlightening information for the reader.  I highly recommend these books for all traders and investors.

Disclosure: Trading Insights, LLC has an affiliate referral relationship with Amazon.

Print and Kindle Versions of Brian Johnson's New Book are Now Both Available on Amazon

Option Strategy Risk / Return Ratios: A Revolutionary New Approach to Optimizing, Adjusting, and Trading Any Option Income Strategy

Trader Edge Strategy E-Subscription Now Available: 20% ROR

The Trader Edge Asset Allocation Rotational (AAR) Strategy is a conservative, long-only, asset allocation strategy that rotates monthly among five large asset classes. The AAR strategy has generated approximately 20% annual returns over the combined back and forward test period (1/1/1990 to 7/29/2013).  Please use the above link to learn more about the AAR strategy.

Feedback

Your comments, feedback, and questions are always welcome and appreciated.  Please use the comment section at the bottom of this page or send me an email.

Referrals

If you found the information on www.TraderEdge.Net helpful, please pass along the link to your friends and colleagues or share the link with your social network.

The "Share / Save" button below contains links to all major social networks.  If you do not see your social network listed, use the down-arrow to access the entire list of social networking sites.

Thank you for your support.

Brian Johnson

Copyright 2014 - Trading Insights, LLC - All Rights Reserved.

Share

About Brian Johnson

I have been an investment professional for over 30 years. I worked as a fixed income portfolio manager, personally managing over $13 billion in assets for institutional clients. I was also the President of a financial consulting and software development firm, developing artificial intelligence based forecasting and risk management systems for institutional investment managers. I am now a full-time proprietary trader in options, futures, stocks, and ETFs using both algorithmic and discretionary trading strategies. In addition to my professional investment experience, I designed and taught courses in financial derivatives for both MBA and undergraduate business programs on a part-time basis for a number of years. I have also written four books on options and derivative strategies.
This entry was posted in Recommended Reading and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *