The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies Potentially very harmful: fairly useful section on exits – Scott C. Locklin – Berkeley CA
I hate reviewing books like this. It would be awesome to say, “this is total nonsense; never, ever read it.” However, there is actually good stuff in it, which makes me work at reviewing it.
The good: the section on exits is quite good. It could be better, but I can’t think of anything out there which actually is better. Selecting an exit strategy is *most* of a trading strategy. It matters a lot less when you buy than when you sell if you’re into, like making a profit. I actually bought the book based on the recommendation of someone smarter than me, specifically for the chapters on exits, and I was no disappointed in this part. The sections on technical analysis and standard indicators aren’t bad either, though like most treatments of this sort of thing, TA comes off looking like magic rather than what it properly should be thought of; which is to say, lousy non stationary filters which might inform other traders you should be trading against. His statistics aren’t exactly right, but they’re not always completely insane either.
The bad: this book is mostly an exercise in data mining and hindsight bias. Genetic algorithms? Optimizers? Give me a break! He doesn’t deal with real issues in doing this sort of trading; for example, signal to noise ratios of various kinds. He doesn’t properly deal with issues of overfitting (yes, you must test out of sample, but there is a whole lot more you can do to reassure yourself you haven’t just fit to a bunch of noise). There is a chapter on fitting to solar and lunar cycles, which is, of course, data mining lunacy. The software he uses is of course all antiquated stuff which was out of date before I could legally drink alcoholic beverages; no help there. Risk management? Money management? These are also crucial pieces of any trading strategy: they’re not covered at all here. I guess the book is oriented towards data mining punters who don’t care so much about such niceties, but, well, I find such things important. I’m not sure I’d trust what the author had to say about such things, but it’s something everyone with money on the line should be worrying about. Also: this is hardly anything resembling “an Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies” -so don’t expect it to be, and you might not be disappointed.
So, this book can be useful if you already know enough to know which parts are nonsense. I guess this is an issue with all books and papers dealing with this subject; you can often take a chapter here and a section there, but books of this nature seem to have a lot of red herrings. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if they are there on purpose, or as filler to sell the good sections. I dunno. Anyway, don’t try to make a zillion dollars using genetic algorithms like they talk about in this book: you will fail.
Anyone planing on or currently trading using technical analysis should read this book. The lessens inside can help prevent loss of savings.
This book takes a careful look at various types of technical indicators and trading strategies that use technical analysis, the types of methods commonly found in charting software and technical analysis books. For me the bottom line is that making a consistent income from trading, using technical analysis, is difficult. (Losing money is not so difficult).
The software referenced in the book and available for a relatively small price, is in my opinion very powerful, but difficult to master (C++ source code that must be compiled, debugged for your compiler, and modified to create useful systems). : The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies is for traders who want to take the next step to consistently profitable trading. The authors–themselves seasoned veterans of the futures trading arena–pinpoint the trading methods and strategies that have been shown to produce market-beating returns. Their rigorous and systematic backtesting of each method, using the same sets of markets and analytic techniques, provides a scientific, system-based approach to system development…to help you assemble the trading system that will put you on the road to becoming a more consistently profitable trader.
The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies
- New Trading Systems and Methods (Wiley Trading)
- Trading Systems That Work: Building and Evaluating Effective Trading Systems
- Quantitative Trading: How to Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business (Wiley Trading)
- High Probability Trading Strategies: Entry to Exit Tactics for the Forex, Futures, and Stock Markets (Wiley Trading)
- High-Frequency Trading: A Practical Guide to Algorithmic Strategies and Trading Systems (Wiley Trading)
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