PDF Trader Vic Methods of a Wall Street Master Victor Sperandeo T Sullivan Brown 9780471304975 Books

Product details Paperback 304 pages Publisher Wiley; 1 edition (August 12, 1993) Language English ISBN-10 0471304972

Trader Vic Methods of a Wall Street Master Victor Sperandeo T Sullivan Brown 9780471304975 Books Reviews

• This is one of the best books about stock trading. It is directed more toward the intermediate to advanced trader, but it has quite a few pearls for the beginner as well. Trader Vic lays out stock trading in two ways. First, he gives the reader a lesson in economics as it pertains to the stock market. He concentrates on the specific economic factors that cause trends in the market including monetary and government policy, news, world events, and history. Second, he gives the reader a “trading floor” view of the actual sausage making process that is stock market speculation. This includes details about different types of traders, institutions, advisers, brokers, options traders, fund managers, and every day speculators. His focus is on the speculative trader and the intermediate trading time frame. He lays out basic principles for speculation and shares his trading techniques including risk management, technical analysis, trend identification, options, and an entire section on psychology that blew my mind. This book is a must read for the beginner on up to the seasoned trader.
• This is two books in one. Together they are a generous gift to aspiring traders. Methods of a Wall Street Master is a distillation of the author's market wisdom and deep research into what makes some trader's succeed while others, seemingly just as qualified, fail.
  
  Part I is all about building your trading knowledge from the ground up. Part II is about the commitment, change and emotional discipline required to transform trading knowledge into total success. That term includes both financial and emotional satisfaction with your life.
  
  In a sense Sperandeo is a philosopher. He defines every noun of consequence so that there is no question what he means, no room for misinterpretation.
  
  Other reviewers have nicely summarized the key components and value of the trading and economics chapters. What I find most fascinating and useful is the second part of the book that focuses on trader psychology.
  
  Another market master, also interviewed by Jack Schwager in his book The New Market Wizards, says that your real trading system is the feelings you are unwilling to feel. Author Victor Sperandeo makes this point from a different angle by focusing on a person's "false pride," a state of mind that drives the trader to continually reach for an unattainable ideal of what they "should be" rather than who they are. This invariably leads to inconsistency and losses.
  
  Sperandeo calls this phenomenon "the tyranny of the 'shoulds'." The author's presentation of this critical aspect of trading is especially valuable because he clearly describes methods that any trader can use to explore, assess and begin to rectify such issues that can impede trading performance.
  
  This excerpt summarizes the author's advice about trading in a few words. "Making mistakes is an unavoidable part of trading. It is the unwillingness to admit mistakes, born of false pride, that stops most traders from succeeding. It is their underlying psychology that undermines their ability to execute according to the rules." ... "When you make a mistake, you can grow by analyzing the mistake and changing your behavior according to what you learn. This process leads to constant improvement of your skills and to a positive estimate of yourself. Practiced consistently, it will lead to self-esteem, not to mention more, and more consistent, profits from trading." (p.256)
  
  The author compresses a lifetime of wisdom about traders and trading into a very well written and logically organized set of chapters. The organization makes it easy to return to the book any time to refresh on a specific topic whether that be technical methods of trade entry and exit and risk control, or his guidance on self-improvement. He includes a good list of books, several not well known, to take the reader farther into the journey of methodology, economics and the Fed, or psychology.
  
  This is a 5-star book in my opinion that belongs in every trader's library.
• It may come as a surprise that there are still folks reviewing this book years after it was written. That is testimony to the fact that this book is timeless and can be put to work today.
  
  Mr. Sperandeo's application of Dow Theory as a primary indicator is as valid today as 10, 20, 40 years ago. The events and psychology that drive the market are still in place, greed, fear, over confidence, self doubt, etc. were part of our make up long before there was a DJIA and will be around long after we are gone. His discussion of what are primary tools and what are secondary and confirming indicators or tools is very helpful especially to new traders.
  
  There are great books on Technical Analysis and he references some of them here, but one of the challenges is they can become and endless list of moving average, stochastic , exponential, indicators that can be applied in almost infinite combinations. Mr. Sperandeo gives great examples of how to balance primary trends with what underlying or secondary indicators are telling you.
  
  I have been trading almost full time for a couple of years and while I wish I would've read this book sooner, I am glad that I had some hard times trading to draw from. A good portion of the book is dedicated to emotion and psychology. When I was first preparing to attempt to trade for a living all I really cared about was the hard analytical material and tools I could apply right away. That was good and important, but what sidetracked me was the emotion and psychology.
  
  Successful trading is hard. Going from occasional trading to a mindset of doing it for a living overnight is hard raised to the 10th power. It is one thing to have a couple of bad trades,and having a couple of bad trades and then falling into near paralysis because those weren't just losing trades, but now they are going to affect making house payments, car payments, etc. Mr. Sperandeo discusses these issues in some detail and they are important. They are especially relevant once you skin your knees a couple of trades, and know this for a fact, you will skin your knees sooner or later.
  
  Additionally, he does something that very few market authors do, discuss the combination of fundamental, technical, and macroeconomic analysis. A lot of trading and investing books lay out some pretty defined lines technical or fundamental, and never the two shall meet. Mr. Sperandeo does an exceptional job of outlining how none of these factors are magic bullets nor do they occur in a vacuum. They are inter-related and by studying and incorporating them it increases your confidence in your position and will help address some of the emotions that come with the territory.
  
  There are some spots in the book that it shows its age like when he relates a story about the power going out in his building and running outside to a pay phone to call the trading pits. There are some other spots, like when he discusses Citibank that seem prophetic and I found myself jumping back to see the copyright date.
  
  Don't let the release date deter you if you are considering this book. I think it is a must have on your shelf whether a part time investor or trader or trying to make a living from it.