Rating: 
Summary: Five Stars Plus!
Review: This is an awesome book and far more informative than any class I have taken in Business School. Between this book and Technical Analysis (Murphy) traders have all the resources they need. I am most happy with the book and recommend it to my colleagues and friends. Anyone looking to trade for their private account should buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Trade not or Trade 2 percent
Review: Elder makes a good point: experts take money from novices. Its a matter of deciding whether your an expert or a novice. If your a novice plan on losing alot of money. The expert feeds of the novice. What makes an expert? They are the ones picking the pockets of the novice. Brokers always win. Slippage kills profits of the novice. Faster trading does not mean more profits. Compulsive behavior destroys the novice chances of survival. Trading is like bull riding, its brutal, it can kill you financial, and it is unpredictable. It is characterized with sudden gains or drops that shift money from one account to another in a matter of seconds. Fear and Greed rule the system. Fear creates apprehensiveness and greed creates overconfidence. No system wins evertime: pattern recognition, group watching, technical indicators, or fundamentals. The rules of engagement don't always make sense. I do like Elder 2 percent concept. Never risk money that can not be made up quick.
Rating:
Summary: "A lot of solid information", Financial Advisor says
Review: This books is just the ammo you need when you tell your wife you are going to start managing the retirement fund ;) All kidding aside this is a great book that covers a lot of bases, Psychology, Trading Tactics Money management. Each subject could have been broken down and anaylzed indepth by itself. Fortunately Dr. Elder is very skilled at weaving in and out of each subject and clearly gives a solid introductory to intermediate explaination of each subject. Most likely from his psychology background, Dr. Elder puts a lot of emphasis on self-assessment, which sometimes bogs down the flow, but like most necessary evils is highly useful.After being involved with futures trading for 11 years and writing several books on the subject I still find books like Dr.Elder's inspirational and important in reminding me why I got involved with this in the first place.
Rating: 
Summary: BUY Market WIZARDS INSTEAD!!
Review: Market Wizards are the books you want to read. I read the 2 market wizard books 1st then read this book. The wizards books if full of the most fascinating, hard to EVER put down reading I have ever done. They have taught me so much. Then when I got to this book it was as if I was on my 1st day of trading and never knew about charts, fundamentals, P/E's and other basics and then some more advanced chart readings, asset allocation, when to place stops, protecting what you have not what isn't there. Read Market Wizards and then if you want more reading get this book. I found that it was overpriced 1st of all and the Wizards provided more valuable information.
In Summation this book is good if:
1) U buy it Used
2) You have never invested before
3) You don't know from charts to getting hurt by stock price movement
4) Never read any other quality books about investing.
Rating:
Summary: If you are halfway from an amateur to a pro, it's for you
Review: If somebody bought, read and judged the book by whether it could really help him or her to go "trading for a living", that somebody would definitely be disappointed. Even the author himself pointed out that the success rate for the conversion of ex institutional traders to independent traders was very low owing to the much higher psychological load of trading one's own money than that of trading OPM. Despite the over-promise of the book title and the second half of it discussing mostly technical tools, the book is quite well written. There are plenty of bright ideas, some with originality that can be attributed to the author's M.D. and psychiatrist background. In particular I like the following points much:- - That trading is a minus sum game (considering commission and slippage) and the mass media or gurus or prevalent market view are almost always wrong. - The analogy of the market as an ocean and a huge crowd of people, in either case an individual can have no control of but have to follow (or leave) emotionlessly for long term profit. - The analogy of Alcoholic Anonymous with Loser Anonymous that requires the same treatment for true recovery, whereas accepting oneself as an alcoholic or a loser is the very first step of healing. - The need for discipline and patience as individual traders' only weapon to against institutional traders advantages in faster information, better research reports, lower psychological burden for trading OPM, etc - Price is a psychological event, a momentary balance of opinion between bulls and bears, its pattern reflects the mass psychology of the market. - Last but not least, the opening prices are determined primarily by amateurs whilst the closing prices are determined by professionals. In short, the book is well worth the price and I do recommend it to those who study continuously for self improvement in their trading. Remarks:- The author claimed that he personally did so, too.
Rating:
Summary: Covers the essentials
Review: Dr. Elder's first book is a gem, and is suitable for traders at any level of experience. The reader learns the importance of having and adhering to firm trading rules. Successful money management is a required skill in order to become a successful trader, and Elder offers good advice on this topic. Elder's education (psychiatrist) gives him the perfect background to explain to the reader how to benefit from understanding crowd psychology. Covering such topics as risk management and how to use a trading system, he emphasizes technucal analysis and shares his own personal methods with the reader. You will refer to this book again and again over the years. This book may be 10 years old, but it is still very appropriate today.
Rating:
Summary: Just Right
Review: Not too technical, not sophmoric..........just right for beginners and experienced alike.
Rating:
Summary: Trading for a Living
Review: Trading for a Living, the first serious trading book I read - as opposed to books about investing or about the markets - defined my approach to trading, with its 3M's of Mind, Markets, Money management (not necessarily in that order of importance.) Years later, as an experienced trader, and one who has considerably modified strategies, holding periods, and indicators to move with changing markets, I still find Dr. Elder's book to be a handy desk-top reference, especially in its middle section. It is lucid and concise.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible intro book....
Review: Avoid this book! This book is full of the author's mumbo-jumbo analogies of bulls vs. bears battles (???); spends a good deal of garbage on defining losers as hopeless addicts (???); makes the claim you shouldn't follow any one else's trading system (which is correct) and then pushes his own systems (and follow up books continue this paradox); the chapters on tech. analysis very sub-par to what else is available.
[...]. I can honestly say that of all the trading books I have bought (numerous), this is the only one I consider worthless. Sorry Elder.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read for Beginners. . .Couldn't hurt advanced traders..
Review: Best comprehensive book I've ever read. Especially liked the simplicity with which he describes the technical indicators. I'm and engineer, and never found a simple explanation for the indicators... Until this book. I finally bought it after 3 unrelated persons recommeded it. I'd already plodded through Murphy's "Technical Analysis of the Futures Markets." Wish I had saved the time ($.. and 400+ pages too...) and just read this instead. Must more concise and a faster read. I just implemented his suggestion of printing out a chart on the left side of your trading journal before you place a trade, then printing out the chart after the trade and pasting it on the right of side of your journal... It's already making a big difference in my trading. Thank You Dr. Elder....
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