currency trading books

darrenf

Well-known member
Messages
481
Likes
3
does anyone know of any good introductory books on currency trading aimed at the individual trader. I am not really after a trading system, more the backround to the markets, market participants etc.

It would also be useful to know from a trading perspective, when the highest volumes/ main moves tends to be, what the standard trading hours are in the main geographical areas are ie UK/Europe, US, Asia etc and characteristics of currencies from a TA point of view. ie what types of patterns tend to work best from a trading point of view.

In short, some market background plus useful trading info aimed at the individual trader.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks
 
Darrenf, have you looked at : "Trading the Global Currency Markets" by Conelius Luca.
Also for the TA : "Technical Analysis Applications in the Global Currency Markets" again by Mr Luca.
Both are around £40.

Hope this helps a320 ;)
 
Not exactly what you are looking for but would suggest you sign up for the free daily analysis mail from Saxo Bank http://www.saxobank.com. Their analysis of currency movements is very good. Might be useful to you as a learning tool to backup any info you glean from books, websites etc.

Kevin.
 
I Noticed kevinmcm spoke about Saxo Bank , and I was wondering if anybody has any experiance of dealing with them. I am mainly interested in FX trading many thanks
 
I use saxo bank for FX charts. Real time, decent range of indicators etc and free! An excellent tool. Charts also cover some futures and indices although not realtime.

I dont use them for actual dealing. Use d4f spreadbet. Virtually same price and spread for FX.

Cheers
 
Thanks for that darrenf

:)

I must admit I have not compared their spreads with d4f SB only with my current SB firm Tradindex , which I am about to move from !!
I will take a look right away
Thanks Again
 
I have traded FX only for a few months but followed the markets much longer than that. You should find that the spreads are almost identical on D4F, and the actual prices follow almost tick by tick with saxo bank. (identical most of the time, sometimes 1 or 2 pip difference). From what I can tell, the often quoted bias by SB companies does not seem to apply with D4F's FX quotes (and fills for that matter). Min trade size is £1 per point so plenty of flexibilty for smaller accounts (like mine). I think this is probably as they run a "proper" FX platform also?

And before anyone asks, no I don't have any connection with D4F. And to prove it, here's a negative to balance it out. SB bias does seem to exist to varying degrees in some of the other markets that D4F quote although from what I can tell, there seem to be much worse offenders. Oh and the charts on saxobank are far superior which is why I use them rather than D4F's charts.
 
Might be worth checking out your local borders branch. I was in Borders Watford today, and they have a huge selection of trading books. ( Bought "stock Market wizrads, and " fooled by randomness" )
Onl;y book I have on FX is " The foreign Exchange handbook" by Walmsley, from my time, when i was Citibanks worst FX trader!! ( and judging from my current fx positions, I haven;t got any better!)
 
Thanks for all the info :)

I been checking the spreads all day between d4f and saxo and they do seem to be the same most of the time.. I have even seen the d4f spread one pip smaller at some stages.

While on ...I have been paper trading the EUR/USD today using a demo version of Compass from Nostradamus systems. Has anybody got any experience of using compass for real ???

Many thanks
 
"Trading the Global Currency Markets" by Conelius Luca.
"Technical Analysis Applications in the Global Currency Markets" again by Mr Luca.
Made up name or what? Hi my names Mr money! ;)
 
Some good threads on moneytec.com that explain in detail when high volume occurs.

Essentially the European opening and next two hours is peak of day. New york opening and next two and a half hours second peak.

Australia is a non event. Japan is a non-event except for USDJPY and EURJPY.

---------------------

I just posted a bunch of stuff on moneytec.com under beginning traders. Work a read.

Also the old threads will aloow you to find answers to all your questions.

Good luck trading.
 
Thanks to this thread I have discoverd Saxobank's site and it's excellent charts - much better than good old futuresource for FX.

Just two points: i) is MACD available is histogram form ii) has anyone worked out how to print the charts??

Cheers for any help -
 
fastnet

just spotted your post.

not sure about MACD as I don't use it.

You can print charts by pressing print screen key, pasting into a word document or other suitable software, then printing. (I learned that on this board too).
 
Wayno

I posted a thread ages ago trying to find out if institutions actually employ speculative/ directional traders who are given an account and basically given the objective of making a profit. (ie the same as a private trader).

Most of the answers I got related to traders operating in the stockmarket and it seemed that there are virtually no traders of this sort actually employed by institutions, basically because such a small % of traders make money, that overall, it is unprofitable.

You mentioned that you were an fx trader. I understand that a large % of turnover in the fx markets is purely speculative. Were you employed as a speculative trader/ do institutions employ a large number of speculative fx traders. If so, what sort of % are actually profitable?

I would be interested to know this to give me a better picture of who the market participants are.

Thanks
 
There is a really good trading books site in the US www.traderslibrary.com . They a normally cheaper than getting them from AMAZON; even after the delivery costs (it is only normally cheaper if you select the cheaper euro delivery option, which takes between 10-20 day.. maybe longer at times). If you spend over a limit they knock of $5 delivery charge per book.
 
Saxo: first-hand experience

TheOwl said:
I Noticed kevinmcm spoke about Saxo Bank , and I was wondering if anybody has any experiance of dealing with them. I am mainly interested in FX trading many thanks


For my experience with Saxo, see my other posts on the board.
 
does anyone know of any good introductory books on currency trading aimed at the individual trader


I see the Luca books have been mentioned; here's another:

"A Foreign Exchange Primer" by Shani Shamah (Wiley, 2003)
 
Top