A contemporary trader's guide

BOOK REVIEW

Title: Trading for a living.
Author: Alexander Elder.
Publisher: John Wiley & sons.
Cost: $74.95

There are three aspects to trading that you need to master before committing money to the game - psychology, techniques and money management.

Alexander Elder has mastered all the three. A practising psychiatrist and trader, he carefully provides hand holding in all aspects in this wonderful book. The first part of the book will change the way you perceive trading.

Elder coldly compares trading to old world gladiators and warns us that a trader who loses money puts his family through suffering, much like a losing gladiator whose property and family were given to the winner as prize money.

His sober approach to tamper our ambitions so we take rational decisions rather than emotional ones is fantastic. His techniques are as old as the hills but the lucid way in which he explains the patterns is incomparable.

Every important oscillator, pattern and chart reading tactic that is required to make you a winning trader has been visited. This section patiently puts you through the paces of mastering technicals as well as any good instructor would. This section was so compelling that I went through it over three times.

Money management and fiscal discipline ties up the entire package that is sure to make you a better trader and put you on the fast track route to trading profits.

I feel this book is a "must have" in every stock / commodities traders arsenal. Though the book was first written in 1993, the ideas remain as valid as ever. Never mind the price of the book, buy it.

The writer is a Mumbai-based investment consultant.