The Little Book of Trading: Trend Following Strategy for Big Winnings

This is the 4th trader's book I have read, it rehased alot of what I already read but there is insightful information in this book. This book is short and an easy read, you can read it over the weekend. The author writes about his interviews with successful traders and how they got started in trading. He shares their background and how they used it in their trading careers - for example one trader was a brilliant programmer but was a loner and didn't like working in groups. He was offered a job at a large firm but it didn't work out because he couldn't conform to the corporate world so he created a program to tell him when to buy and sell stocks. He ended up making over 20 million dollars. The point is that you cant excel in trading if you do not develop your own system of trading that caters to your style.The author is opposed to fundemental trading and he states that several times in the book. He believes markets are inefficient thus fundemental trading is useless. Also fundamental trading is for amateurs and those who are fearful of the market. He gave examples of really smart people creating fundamental trading systems designed for the long haul. For example you can invest in a company who has a price of $100 dollars a share and in five years it may go to $200 a share, fundamental trading doesn't take into account how it got to $200 - maybe it dropped to $50 a share in the process. A trend follower would ride the trend down to $50 and then back up to $200. Another point he made is not to listen to the clowns on TV - no one is able to predict the market but amateurs are looking for something to believe in. Markets are unpredictable but as a trend follower that doesn't really matter, just follow the trend until it stop trending. Just that simple.The most important message I took from the book was in trading the only aspect we have control over is how much we lose. Make sure that you have a clear exit strategy and never deviate from it. If you have that you will last as a trader. Lastly develop a system and a set of rule and never break those rules, if you do you won't be trading for long.All in all is a good book. The only knock I have is that he never really told you what their system was, he just mentioned they had a system. At the end of the book he leaves his website and says send him a message if you have any questions. I went to his website and just seen paid type of services. Guess he is in it for the money and not to assist new traders.Good luck.Dmonk.

We've all seen them before. Websites offering get rich quick strategies for day trading penny stocks, options, and forex. These websites usually focus more on the "getting rich" part. Unfortunately, after completing The Little Book of Trading, I found this to be akin to such websites. As another reviewer said, it is all sizzle and very little steak.I would also like to mention that Michael Covel sells a $3,000 "trading system" on his website. If you're looking for a turn-key trading system, just go to his website and save your Audible credits for something else. I went into this book without reading reviews, and the negative reviews are pretty accurate. The little pieces of actionable information can be derived from reading the positive reviews.This book is a collection of short stories about traders who developed their own trend following systems and became multi-millionaires. After a few chapters, you'll start to hear the same themes over and over again. It's ultimately about believing in your system and not liquidating your account when you go through massive drawdowns - which is easier said than done.Throughout the book, Covel advises readers to not watch the news and to only look at charts. While I personally agree that technical analysis is more powerful than fundamental analysis, I think watching CNBC (or Bloomberg) and reading Barrons is perfectly healthy and helps generate awareness of the market.It's also extremely arrogant to conclude that if retail investors were trend traders in 2008, they would have profited trading pork belly futures instead of losing their homes. Sorry guys, no Stochastic Oscillator or MACD Crossover could tell you that we were about to enter a global economic meltdown.My issue with the book is that it never once discusses what to look for and what is noise. The only tidbit I picked up was to look for stocks that have made a channel breakout or stocks where the simple moving averages are above each other.The anecdotes in this book are from decades ago when traders had to draw their own charts nightly based on the previous days closing prices. Fortunately, the market has changed immensely since then. With tools like ThinkOrSwim, TradeStation, eSignal, and TC2000, we have professional grade programs that are more powerful than what the pros had years ago. We have hundreds of technical indicators to choose from. Covel mentions Richard Donchian many times (and rightfully so, as he is the father of trend trading), but never mentions Donchian Channels or any of the strategies that Donchian used. I'd also like to add that Richard Donchian had degrees from Yale and MIT - which sort of goes against the notion that anyone can be a successful trend trader.There are a few good take-homes from this book, though. I'd say the most useful advice for me is to not develop trade ideas after the market has opened. I can tell you from experience that you will get burned 9/10 times because you get excited and make a knee jerk emotional reaction when a stock gaps up on some positive news (or drops for no reason at the open). A common thread throughout this book is to do whatever you can to remain emotionless. You need your trading strategy to be like a machine. Whatever your strategy is, you have to stick with it.I do agree with another reviewer who said that your strategy has to be something you develop over the years, tweaking as you go along. It has to fit your personal beliefs. However, this book literally says, "Trend Following Strategy for Big Winnings" on the front cover, and that is false advertising as no strategy is ever discussed.My advice is to learn the ins and outs of your charting tool of choice (like the 4 I mentioned earlier), develop custom scans and watch lists, and trade small and often. If you're not ready to get your feet wet, you can trade using paper money in ThinkOrSwim or OptionsHouse. Personally, I've learned more from Dough and Tasty Trade (free sites) than I have from any books or paid sites so far. Be patient and don't quit you day job.

From all of the trading books that I've read--and I've read every trading book you can think of--this one ranks as the second worst book I've read. The worst one was Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb. (You can read my review on that book.)Do not waste your money on this book. You will learn nothing from it!If you're looking for a good book from "The Little Book" series, buy The Little Book of Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager. This book will teach you REALLY VALUABLE lessons. After interviewing the best traders/investors for his first 4 Market Wizards books, Schwager summarizes the lessons learned in this "little book." (You can read my review on that book.)Schwager's little book is about twice the price of Covel's little book, but the first has many valuable lessons, and the latter has zero value.NOTE: This review, including the title, is based on and reflects my own personal opinion.

Don't recommend, not a single trading idea was reveled, only generic thoughts about trading in general. Better to look for other books

This book is totally ideology, nothing real and details on how to identify the trend. Trend keep on changing, how to identify when it start, when it end, I bought 5 of Michael's books to try to find out how, and not one of his book talk about this details on how. It is so dis-pointed, So it is not worthy your time to read it.

Good Book!!

I bought this book because I thought it might contain some ideas around trend trading systems, how they work and how one might go about testing and developing them to fit one's own biases and perwonality. This book does not contain any such information. Instead it is a book about certain trend traders, which does not give much idea about their methods, but comes across as a sycophantic ramble about them. The book is a long advertisement/propaganda document about trend following, with the author putting down other methods and claiming that they do not work. For this, he is dangerous, there are plenty of trading methods out there each of which is capable of providing reasonable returns, with trend following being just one, you have to find them and use the one you are most comfortable with. Each chapter covers one trader or a group of traders who work together in a fund, giving you mostly unimportant details about their life stories but without techniques and in most cases without using their own words. If you want to learn about traders and what makes them tick, you should read it in their own words. For that I would recommend Jack Schwager's fantastic Market Wizard books. There are plenty of tips there and things that would improve you as a trader. Please do not waste your money here.