Ben Robson goals in this book is to give examples of traders, products, and ways in which you can make money in the FX marketplace, point out the many obstacles that you will face in your pursuit of profits, and give advice on how you can train yourself to think smart and trade smart. One observation he has made in my financial markets experience is that traders both big and small often employ too much risk. Another, more so nowadays, is that they trade too frequently. It is also well documented that the majority of traders are quick to take profits and slow to cut losses.
Introduction:
By committing to a disciplined strategy and sticking to it, you will find that in most cases, trading performance will improve. Understanding the risks and dangers of trading is fundamental to staying in the game. You can beef up your tactics by learning from the Currency Kings. The last point I wish to make is that if you are serious about trading, it is possible to win. As with most things, if you wish to do it well, it requires preparation, time, effort, and dedication. It also requires continuous focus, guts, tenacity, and coolness under pressure. Trading is not a walk in the park. It is the business of making money, and that must be front and center in your mind. If you are at all blasé in your approach, then you will lose.
If the performance metric of winners to losers is to improve, then it starts with adopting a serious attitude. And that means doing the work. Discovering your method of trading will then come naturally to you. By avoiding some of the obstacles in your path you will improve your profitability. If along that path you discover that you have a genuine competitive advantage, then you are well on the way to winning. How much so depends on the competitive advantage and how scalable it is. But always be mindful about the risks you take. There are a lot of very intelligent extraders who have been incapable of managing their risks, and there have been a great many spectacular blowups.
The book Currency Kings, I hope, will act as a guide and an aidemémoire to your trading activities. If the book inspires people to trade with a plan and with discipline, it will have achieved most of its goal; if it helps launch a new Currency King, it will have succeeded beyond my expectations.
Contents:
- The Four Basic Trading Principles
- George Soros: Global Macro King
- John Henry: Technical Trading Genius
- Urs Schwarzenbach: Writing FX Option Strangles
- Online Currency Entrepreneurs: How the Early FX Market Makers Grew from Pioneers to Billionaires
- Jim Simons: Quant King
- Renat Fatkhullin: Social Trading and MT4
- Caveat Emptor: Tricks and Traps to Avoid When Trading Online
- Top Tips to Improve Performance
Currency Kings: How Billionaire Traders Made their Fortune Trading Forex and How You Can Too By Ben Robson pdf
Leslie Andrade (verified owner) –
The top rated review for this book saying that a few chapters were irrelevant is very true.
This book is NOT Currency Kings. Don’t get me wrong, the content is amazing if the book was called “History of Trading” or something amongst these lines.
The author rambled so much. On each chapter, apart from Soros, the author spends more time explaining the history of trading than actually talking about the Currency King. Especially with Jim Simons – in his chapter if one or two pages were about him.
Honestly this is a disappointing book. It is extremely badly written for what it advertises. There’s so much rambling and most of this book is about explaining the history of trading systems, how they started and all that information from the past – barely about the “Currency Kings” themselves.
Another one is him talking about the guy who owns MetaQuotes. How is he a Currency King? He was not even a trader!
I don’t recommend this to anyone who wants to read about how TRADERS made their money. So much rambling, so much useless information and topics about people who weren’t even traders. This book is more about the history of trading.
This was so promising and ended up very disappointed. I was already skeptical when it said “how billionaires made their money trading forex and HOW YOU CAN DO IT TOO” but it failed to deliver the main topic of the book: how the billionaires made their money trading forex.
Don’t waste your time with this. Go read Market Wizards. I’ve got from the little book of market Wizards in less than 200 small pages more than this book tried to say in almost 280 huge pages.
Emory Ventura (verified owner) –
An excellent recounting of the machinations of the foreign exchange markets, written by a trader that lived through it.
Nolan Zuniga (verified owner) –
Well worth buying, but not top drawer as it was mainly third party involvement and the author’s opinions. Some of which were rambling and uninteresting. Nevertheless, most chapters were educational .
Tony Galvan (verified owner) –
A well researched book that provides a good balance between the stories behind some existing Currency Kings and how you can learn from them and the author’s own experiences to become a Currency King yourself. Entertaining and thought provoking.
Sierra Kirby (verified owner) –
Very authentic and well researched. Pleasant and interesting to read. I discovered a new angle of view on facts and stories that are publicly known.
The book is very inspiring, it is a manual on how to improve the way of trading. I am excited to see if I can make these methods work for me!
Chase Burgess (verified owner) –
Awesome read. A true insight into the FX markets through the 80s and 90s to current day.
Written by someone who sat in the midst of the “madness” and saw at first hand the events he describes so well. This shows the saying “fact is often stranger than fiction” is so relevant!
Abdiel Odom (verified owner) –
I purchased this book sometime ago, but was not able to read it until recently and that is a shame as it turned out to be a great read ! So much so, that I am giving copies to my two adult professional sons as I am sure that they will enjoy it immensely as well. I thought that the author ( who obviously speaks from years of experience in this industry ) did a great job with the way the book is organized . Firstly a great overview of the business and how it is run, followed by a series of most interesting biographies of successful traders, and ending with some tips on how to not lose your shirt as a retail trader ! In particular, I thought the chapter dealing with George Soros was extremely interesting and the intense battle that he had with the bank of England creates great action-packed reading ! A must read for anyone in the FX market or is thinking of getting into it.
Alondra Chan (verified owner) –
i got alot out of this. very good writing and research.
Sierra Kirby (verified owner) –
Do not expect to make a million with this book, let alone a Billion, the “… and How You Can Too” part (from the title) is nowhere to be found in this book.
It explains how a few individuals (like Soros) earned a fortune in the Forex market and that’s about it. No “secret will be revealed to you, no magical indicator, no trading system or anything of that nature.
Lilliana Ashley (verified owner) –
The book was OK.. I have spent most of my career in FX. Too much talk about having an edge making money and focused on guys that made a billion. An edge helps but money can be made without an edge. I did like the discussion about how the wide spread and hidden fees eats away at profits.
Julien Schwartz (verified owner) –
The book describes how “legends” made their fortune but there is also a lot of value in the chapters describing online retail trading. The author writes on the history of that industry, describes who’s who, and dives into a lot of details on how brokers make their money with their customers… He talks about fees, platforms and also how brokers think and see their business and their customers. For anybody who never worked at an online brokerage firm and is a private trader, this book can be very useful.
Kylen Conner (verified owner) –
I found this to be a very interesting read on todays forex markets, how they work and how they have evolved over time in times of crisis and innovation. It also gives you some background on the habits and personalities of the hedge fund magnates who made billions throughout the years. It’s a fairly long book but I was never bored by it as the written style makes it very engaging. It also goes in to detail on the technicalities of forex trading and gives a very good insight into the industry and how hedge funds grew enough to influence global markets and even governments. Definitely recommended if you don’t mind something a bit long and are into finance.
Dallas Wallace (verified owner) –
Overall, it was a decent book. At times, however, it was more fluff than education. Honestly, without the fluff, this book could have easily been 80 pages shorter, and that would have been more meaningful. In terms of trading knowledge, I don’t feel I got what I wanted. It was cool learning about the currency kings in the beginning of the book, but the end really dragged, and that’s why, to me, it’s just an average book.
Laylani Meyers (verified owner) –
All you wanted to know about the top kings in Finance and a must read for anyone involved into the world of FX.
Branson Browning (verified owner) –
I really like the stories of successful traders such as John Henry. So much detail. Very eye opening and motivation book for anyone involved in the Forex market.