Techniques Of Tape Reading

Vadym Garifer, a Russian (Soviet Union) who migrated to Canada and... choose to become a trader since he could not find better alternatives in a new country. Hence, this is not only a book about trading. It is somehow part and parcel of biography for Vadym Graifer too...

Well, I actually remember reading this book few years back when a friend borrowed me. However, a buddy mentioned to me recently and I just could not recall what I read before, LOL. As a result of this, I decided to reread this book. Sometimes, a second read can deliver different perspectives. Furthermore, we tend to appreciate more on what the author wanted to present in the first place.

This time around, I thought I have a better understanding on this book. Well, like I said above; there is a biography part at the beginning of the book. The reason why the author was "forced" to venture into trading serves as a good reminder to us. How lucky we are compares to immigrant like this. Take myself as example; I was lucky enough to choose what I want to do. I love my job and I was so fortunate to be able to stay in this job for more than 10 years! Overall, the biography part was simply awesome. I like biography.. especially biography about a trader. That is also why I enjoyed so much with "Reminiscences of Stock Operator".

But.. Ah-ha, the "but" part, LOL...Apart from the beginning part about a trader's journey, the rest of the contents failed to attracts me once again. Well, I do not belong to the author's school of thought. As such, I have problem adjusting myself to enjoy what he wrote. End of the day, those are the things that I rejected for so many years. Hence, I find no reason to enjoy it now... Having said that, I must clarify that this is all due to my very personal acceptance on certain school of thoughts. I am not complaining about the writing skill and any pieces of information that was revealed by the author. Put my personal preferences aside, I thought this is a nice book to explore. After all, I can see how the author sharing his thoughts without hiding... But, since it is not my cup of tea, my personal rating for this book is not going to be high. Out of 10, I am going to give a rating of 6. The truth is: I ONLY enjoyed the beginning part (biographical stuff) of this book.

Listed below are some of my favorite quotes ... Thumbs up to the author for sharing this piece of valuable advice!

It's easy to relax when you watch someone else trade... I found my way: I detached myself from my emotions enough to not act under their influence... Does this all sounds crazy? Sure, it does, but trading is a crazy business. It requires an unusual state of mind, so that unusual tricks are justified. 

Trading what I saw, not what I thought...

"If I can't make money using it, I can make money selling it."...Fortunately, I learned to trade without having to pay for something from someone that wasn't proven reliable. I paid the market for my education instead, and what a great teacher it was!

The most successful students are those who find their own slant on the approach they are being taught. They apply their personality to the system they study and produce their own version of the system. That's their edge and comfort zone.

Does TA work? The answer depends on what you expect TA to do for you? If you want TA to tell you what the future will bring, then no, it does not...TA has no predicting value. 

TA doesn't offer predicting value... but, it provides structure and favorable odds.. TA works as long as you read them to your advantage and do not expect them to tell you what to do. They are your tools. Tools does not work by themselves. 

Traders who expect TA to do their trading are similar to musicians who expect their pianos to play music. 

Trader Vic On Commodities

"As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. There are also unknown knowns, the ones we did not know we know." 

"More importantly, you should find yourself able to lose more than win and still remain profitable overall. Learning to accept, deal with, and minimize losses is the most important factor.."

"So, you lost because something changed - an unknown... In effect, your lack of emotional discipline was itself an unknown unknown... The market are strong or weak for a reason, but you may not know why - a known unknown..."

Well... The known and unknown stuff as mentioned above did enough to attract me to continue with this book... After all, I thought the author, Master Vic talked sense and there is certain logical to the theories as mentioned.

However, the attractive part did not last long... In fact, there is only about 20% (perhaps less than that) of logical and senses... Eventually, it was followed by 80% (perhaps more) of promotional tool for the commodity index that Mr. Sperandeo devised! End of the day, the title itself is misleading... I just did not get what I want and what I expected!

Frankly, I thought publisher need to stop doing this... To me, this is not a proper way to market something... Having said that, my rating for this book definitely would not be high. The fact that I spend only less than 24 hours (perhaps less than that) to finish this book did enough to justify my rating. Well, I gain something... perhaps 20% of excellent information. Other than that, I really do not find anything interesting. Rating wise, I am going to rate 2/10... Exactly the 20% that I gained for the past 24 hours... LOL

The Greatest Trades Of All Time

This is a collection of so called "the greatest trade" by Vince Veneziani... I said "so called" as I think the author missed out some of the real "greatest" trades that are not mention in the book. In my humble opinion, since it is a about greatest trades, legend like Warren Buffet should not be miss out. I honestly think the world richest trader should have more than one greatest trade throughout his career. At the same time, I sincerely do not think some of the player as mentioned in the book deserved to be classify into the category of "Greatest Trades". End of the day, what is so special when the so called "Greatest Trades" happen only once in a lifetime?

Further to this, I thought the author's opinion in regards to each case as discussed seems too general for readers to digest. To make the thing worse, the author seems to get confused on whether he is profiling various well-known traders or whether he is writing about their trades. In fact, I am very familiar with stories about James Chanos, Paul Tudor Jones II, John Templeton, Jesse Livermore (Still my all-time favorite), John Paulson, George Soros and Martin Schwartz (My Idol... LOL). As such, I thought the "Top Traits" as pointed out by the author seems inadequate and very much misleading. I understand the technique of writing a book. After all, it is pretty safe to do so... especially when a writer needs to write something unfamiliar...

Having said that... I actually love the idea of "recreating trading strategy" at the end of each story. The author did his best to connect the said trade to current situation. Well, although some of his opinions seem not practical; at least the author did put some effort to conclude each trade. As such, this is actually a well-planned book. At least the structure in building up the stories and the summary to end each stories are good enough.

Overall, this is an average book in my humble opinion. . Detailing wise; well, it is so inadequate! Educational wise; since I personally do not agreed with some of the advice given by the author, I could not comment much! In fact, I think the author does not really understand the world of trading (No offence though)...Perhaps, that is the reason why some of his personal opinion does not seems appealing to me at all.

Well, please bear in mind that this is a book of "Collections" (Collections of greatest trades). As such, it is more like a summary rather than details digging... As I am quite familiar with 80% of the trades as mentioned, this book at least serves as a good refresher. Rating wise, I am going to rate 3/10 for this book. Although incomplete in details, I do really need this kind of book on my shelf...