All Trading Books

Hedge funds are now the largest volume players in the capital markets. They follow a wide assortment of strategies but their activities have replaced and overshadowed the traditional model of the long only portfolio manager. Many of the traditional technical indicators and commonly accepted trading strategies have become obsolete or ineffective.

The focus throughout the book is to describe the principal innovations that have been made within the equity markets over the last several years and that have changed the ground rules for trading activities. By understanding these changes the active trader is far better equipped to profit in today’s more complex and risky markets. Long/Short Market Dynamics includes:

• A completely new technique, Comparative Quantiles Analysis, for identifying market turning points is introduced. It is based on statistical techniques that can be used to recognize money flow and price/momentum divergences that can provide substantial profit opportunities.
• Power laws, regime shifts, self-organized criticality, phase transitions, network dynamics, econophysics, algorithmic trading and other ideas from the science of complexity are examined. All are described as concretely as possible and avoiding unnecessary mathematics and formalism.
• Alpha generation, portfolio construction, hedge ratios, and beta neutral portfolios are illustrated with case studies and worked examples.
• Episodes of financial contagion are illustrated with a proposed explanation of their origins within underlying market dynamics

User Reviews about Long Short Market Dynamics: Trading Strategies for Today's Markets (Wiley Trading)

Most financial market books, especially those on TA, seem as though addressed to prospective targets: "Suckers, use my superdooper-specialized proprietary method, trade a lot, get my newsletter, and open an account at my very own, highly recommended XYZ brokerage firm." They are, generally, composed of descriptions of too-well known indicators, replete with glowing, yet unsubstantiated, accounts of the profits the author has obtained by using them. Even the more serious attempts, like those of John Murphy, are merely encyclopedic gatherings of indicators, with little effort made to determine their objective utility or profitability; or, like Kaufman's, while addressing a more intelligent, educated technician, too compendious. Sadly, the better books present the reader with barely more than introductions to approaches that are mathematically and computationally more rigorous; and, while they may also indicate further directions of study, do little in the way of providing it.

This book, I am happy to say, avoids all of these objections.

The author discusses and describes a number of statistical methods, and develops them into tools with which to measure and identify market development and direction. And though his instruction is often brief, it is to the point. This adds a certain density to the presentation, but it IS presented. As an example, he uses a quantile segregation of price-data to reduce the adverse effects of noise in a moving average. He indicates in two sentences the formula to use in EXCEL to obtain it. Testing of these tools is, of course, the responsibility of the reader, but there is no arguing the fresh, original character of these methods, and the patience with which the author explains them. If nothing else, it stimulates the imagination. Wait, that is everything, isn't it?

Very highly recommended. -- Provocative and unusual

This is a piece of original work that you rarely see in financial books. I find the author's web site a great pratical complement to the book. The combination gives you the theory and pratice to profit in the market. I have to respectfully disagree with the bad review given before. You simply have to be the right target for the book; more on the advanced side. Please preview the book for yourself but I assure you that the content and ideas are simply original and made me money so far. -- Original work - Truly Great

I'm not very sure I agree with the other reviewer's assessment of the book. Luckily for me, I read the book before coming across the review and corresponding rating on Amazon.
This book provides a very decent overview of the latest thinking about market dynamics. Trading systems being what they are, mechanical representations of underlying market mechanisms, it really helps if the (would-be) trader were to understand the reasoning behind system internals. This can further lead to a proper grasp of "how, when and which": how to tweak a system, when to tweak it, and which system to modify.
I heartily recommend this book to all those who are interested in exploring the fascinating world of markets that lie underneath our trading systems. Just don't expect to get rich quickly by reading this. -- A pretty decent book on the latest innovations in trading