Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Trade Like a Hedge Fund : 20 Successful Uncorrelated Strategies & Techniques to Winning Profits by James Altucher ISBN: 0-471-48485-7 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 20 February, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Insider Tips That Won't Land You in Jail
Comment: James Altucher is a professional money manager and a contributor to TheStreet.com who has assembled a collection of "20 successful uncorrelated strategies and techniques" for trading the markets. His first book effort is one of the most practical trading guides I have encountered.
What sets "Trade Like a Hedge Fund" apart is that we don't have to take the author's word that these strategies are successful. Included in every chapter are the specific rules for each strategy and the tested trading results over the recent past. I particularly like the fact that he has tested the results across broad market indices and individual equities. For example, Altucher creates his own version of the famous "Turtle" trend- following system and tests it on the S&P 500 Index, the NASDAQ 100 stocks, and a basket of uncorrelated stocks. This very much helps display the robustness of the underlying trading concept.
Among the specific strategies disclosed and tested are a unique method for trading the spread between S&P and NASDAQ stocks; an intraday method for trading the Cumulative NYSE TICK; a short-term trading system that makes use of Bollinger Bands; a technique for allocating money to bonds; and a straightforward method for arbitraging preferred and common stock of companies.
Where I think this book is strongest is in illustrating how a professional hedge fund manager thinks about the markets. Many of the strategies are designed to take advantage of extremes in the market, where inefficiencies are most likely to be present due to traders' panic and overconfidence. Altucher's creativity in searching for these inefficiencies stimulates the reader to engage in a similar search. Reading the chapter on the NYSE TICK, for example, I soon developed my own promising variation on the author's strategy.
Are there weaknesses in the book? I found the text to be clearly written and well-illustrated with charts and tables. The systems were designed and tested with the Wealth Lab program, but the specific code for each of the systems is not included in the text. An exception is the pairs trading system, which is one of the most creative strategies in the book. The strategies are geared more for swing and intermediate-term trading than "day-trading", with the TICK system a notable exception. My sense is that creative researchers could adapt some of Altucher's ideas to shorter-term trading--particularly the pairs trading technique and the strategy for buying market "crashes".
Altogether, "Trade Like a Hedge Fund" belongs to a genre of books inspired by the work of Victor Niederhoffer (who Altucher acknowledges in his introduction). The focus is on scientifically-tested trading concepts, not discretionary, subjective ones. Where Altucher may differ from Niederhoffer is in his willingness to adapt traditional technical analysis tools (such as Bollinger Bands and gaps) to quant trading. As a matter of disclosure, let me say that I have corresponded with Altucher about his ideas, but this review was not solicited by him or his editor (who happens to be my editor as well). The best thing I can say about the text is that it has given me ideas for my own research and trading. I can't say that about many trading books.
Brett Steenbarger
www.brettsteenbarger.com
Rating: 3
Summary: For Beginner
Comment: Bought this book in anticipation of fresh ideas. For the beginner this is a great way to get the mind flowing with new thoughts.
Personally I didn't find that it sparked anything new for me. But what doesn't work for some may work for others. If your a seasoned trader I wouldn't get it, but if you are a beginner I would order it right now.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Meat and Potatoes of Trading
Comment: When I was on the board of a not-for-profit organization, I asked one of the major contributors for what amounted to a 25-fold increase in funding. He politely declined, telling me, "Stick to the meat and potatoes issues."
Well, "meat and potatoes" is what you get with Altucher's book. It's chock-full of techniques and mechanisms successful pro's use to earn ongoing, market-beating profits for their clients. From Page One, it's clear this is a no-nonsense read. Altucher doesn't waste the reader's time spewing self-aggrandizing war-stories, nor does he find himself mired in personal biases or widely-held market fantasies. Rather, he gets right down to the business of trading, taking a realistic, "whatever works" approach, including methods based in both counting (statistical analysis) and what is popularly referred to as "technical analysis." There is discussion of trading gaps, spreads and "the tick," moving averages and bands, and other lesser-known techniques including buying bankruptcies, taking advantage of option expiration day, and deletions from indexes. Each is clearly explained, using real-world examples, and all are augmented with very well done charts, graphs and data tables. Throughout, Altucher debunks a number of market myths and he kindly includes a short chapter on "what doesn't work."
Mind you, this book is more for seasoned investors than it is for rookies, though aspiring novices need not be discouraged from buying it and studying the techniques. It's about "trading," which is significantly different from longer-term, buy-and-hold "investing," and not to be confused with risky "day-trading." To make best use of the material, one should have a reasonable market vocabulary and it wouldn't hurt to have a few math skills, but if not, you'll still be able to make plenty of sense out of Altucher's plain speaking.
The principal criticism of "trading systems" is that once they're made known, they won't work anymore, or for very long thereafter. This is quite true. I've heard some say about Altucher's book, "Gee, how could he do this? Once the word's out, we won't be able to trade these again." Wrong. What Altucher offers is NOT a "no-brainer-get-rich-quick-doing-things-my-way" trading system designed to make the author rich by doing nothing more than selling books to the unsuspecting wannabe. If that's what you want, don't buy this book. What it is, and why you should buy this book, is a collection of proven professional techniques that, when applied thoughtfully and within reason, can over time help to make one a very successful trader.
That this book has been bundled with Niederhoffer's "Practical Speculation," and that Altucher mentions this and its predecessor "Education of a Speculator" first among all books in his reading list is telling. Niederhoffer has indeed written the Old and New Testaments of Market Speculation, and in "Trade Like a Hedge Fund," Altucher has written the Concordance. The bottom line? If you're a seasoned investor or an aspiring rookie, and you want to learn to be a successful trader, you can't afford not to own this book.
 |
Title: Practical Speculation by Victor Niederhoffer, Laurel Kenner ISBN: 0471443069 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 21 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
 |
Title: Techniques of Tape Reading by Vadym Graifer, Christopher Schumacher ISBN: 0071414908 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 19 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
 |
Title: It's Earnings That Count : Finding Stocks with Earnings Power for Long-term Profits by Hewitt Heiserman Jr. ISBN: 0071423230 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 21 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
 |
Title: High Probability trading by Marcel Link ISBN: 0071381562 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 17 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
 |
Title: Professional Stock Trading: System Design and Automation by Mark R. Conway, Aaron N. Behle ISBN: 0971853649 Publisher: Acme Trader Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $64.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
