Currency Trading in the Forex and Futures Markets
$29.47
“Currency Trading in the Forex and Futures Markets” by Carley Garner is a practical, execution-focused guide designed to bridge the gap between theory and real-world currency trading. Unlike books that concentrate on abstract macroeconomics or overly complex indicators, this work emphasizes risk-controlled decision-making, market structure, and the practical realities of trading both spot Forex and currency futures.
Garner draws on professional trading experience to explain how currencies move in response to interest rates, economic data, and cross-market relationships. A distinguishing feature of the book is its balanced treatment of Forex versus futures, outlining the advantages, limitations, costs, and risk characteristics of each market. This allows traders to choose the instrument that best fits their capital, temperament, and strategy.
The book places strong emphasis on risk management and position sizing, treating them as the foundation of survival and long-term profitability. Garner explains leverage realistically, highlights common retail trading mistakes, and provides frameworks for controlling downside exposure in volatile currency environments. Technical tools are used pragmatically—not as prediction devices, but as aids for timing, confirmation, and trade management.
Rather than promising shortcuts, this book develops professional habits: disciplined planning, understanding market mechanics, and respecting risk. It is especially valuable for traders who want a clear, no-nonsense roadmap to participating in currency markets with structure and accountability.
✅ What You’ll Learn:
- Key differences between Forex trading and currency futures trading.
- How interest rates and macroeconomic forces influence currency prices.
- Practical approaches to technical analysis for timing and confirmation.
- How leverage really works—and how it destroys undisciplined traders.
- Risk management techniques tailored to volatile currency markets.
- Position sizing methods for capital preservation and consistency.
- Common mistakes made by retail Forex traders and how to avoid them.
- How to build a structured, rule-based currency trading plan.
💡 Key Benefits:
- Clear comparison of Forex and futures markets for informed decision-making.
- Strong focus on capital protection and realistic expectations.
- Practical insights drawn from real trading experience, not theory alone.
- Helps traders transition from speculation to structured execution.
- Applicable to both discretionary and rule-based trading styles.
👤 Who This Book Is For:
- Intermediate traders looking to trade currencies professionally.
- Forex traders who want a deeper understanding of futures markets.
- Traders struggling with leverage, overtrading, or risk control.
- Market participants seeking a realistic, execution-driven guide.
- Anyone who wants to trade currencies with discipline rather than hype.
📚 Table of Contents:
- What Is FOREX?
- Making “Cents” of Currency Pairs
- FX Brokers and the Reality of Transaction Costs
- Is FOREX the Currency Casino?
- FOREX Trading Quotes and Calculations
- What Are Currency Futures?
- Calculating in Currency Futures
- Currency ETFs Versus FOREX and Futures
- Order Types and Choosing a Currency Trading Platform
- Currency Options
- Currency Market Fundamental
- Getting Technical with Currencies
- Tips and Tricks for Currency Traders
- Currency Lingo
Currency Trading in the Forex and Futures Markets By Carley Garner
| Author(s) | |
|---|---|
| Product Type | Ebook |
| Format | |
| Skill Level | Beginner to Intermediate |
| Pages | 237 |
| Publication Year | 2012 |
| Delivery | Instant Download |
11 reviews for Currency Trading in the Forex and Futures Markets
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Magnus Khan (verified owner) –
This book is very informative for a first time reader of investment trading. It is well written and helps explain the entire process of investing. Garner is transparent about the process which is refreshing. Not having a lot of knowledge or confidence in the field of trading, it is comforting to know that there are people you can still trust. If I were to invest in the future, I would choose DeCarley Trading hands down.
Kenna Gentry (verified owner) –
I read a lot of trading books, and most are, frankly, pretty useless. Carley’s book, however, is a keeper. It has plenty of good info for beginners and intermediate traders alike. I especially like the comparison of futures vs. forex.
This book won’t teach you to trade, and it doesn’t give you specific strategies, but it is a very good reference book for Forex trading.
Adelynn McConnell (verified owner) –
The book is geared toward the novice to mid-experienced FOREX trader. I have traded FOREX for years and still learned a few thing, but I am sure a new FOREX trader will get a significant amount help from the book. I also believe in using the experience and expertise of others to avoid the mistakes that end up costing money to learn. Another words, why re-invest the wheel when others can guide you in how to they discovered the wheel and how to make life easier using the wheel. This book is a great textbook to guide the new trader into success.
London Heath (verified owner) –
This is a wholly dry book with unadorned prose that gives beginner to early intermediate instruction on this sort of trading. The goal here is to take away the mystery of FOREX trading by providing basic information. The author is to be commended for stressing — many times! — that this isn’t a get-rich-quick sort of scheme and that there are some serious pitfalls which you will want to avoid.
Her discussion of the power of and the dangers of leveraging was, for my money, the most important part of the book. She also warns against brokers who attract novice investors with the claims of no commission.
I suspect that experienced traders will find little here which they have not already learned.
Livia Goodman (verified owner) –
Over the past 5 years, I have read over a dozen books on trading currencies and the FOREX market in general. Most tend to echo the same basic themes, definitions, calculations and observations. Thankfully, this book is very different. With Currency Trading in the FOREX and Futures Markets, the author not only approaches the subject matter from a refreshingly new perspective, but her insights are bold and even daring – yet always grounded in reality.
Perhaps the most important distinction the author makes is the difference between an ECN FX broker and a “dealing-desk” FX broker. Based on the vast number of television and print advertisements for the latter, there is a sense among traders that they only have one option, but this is not true. Commission-free trading as the primary model for retail FOREX trading is misleading. Not only is the arrangement more expensive, but it turns out to be a synthetically created market with an inherent conflict of interest.
On the surface, the fixed bid/ask spread charged by dealing-desk brokerage firms in lieu of a formal commission may sound appealing, but it is usually a wider gap than the pip spread offered by a proper ECN FX broker which has a far deeper and more liquid market to work with. So, although an ECN FX broker may charge a commission/markup, the actual cost to the client is typically going to be lower.
Worse, dealing-desk FX brokers tend to act as the counterparty to client trades, literally taking the other side. Personally, I would not want to put myself in a situation where – at least hypothetically – my broker is secretly rooting for me to fail.
Another aspect of the book I especially appreciated was the author’s careful consideration of currency futures. Typically, currency futures are treated as an afterthought and are relegated to a few paragraphs at the end of a book on FOREX. Here Ms. Garner devotes two key chapters to them, highlighting their many advantages like tight spreads, default risk mitigation and a fully transparent marketplace.
Other topics that stood out for me in this book include: charting tools and indicators, a comparison of different trading platforms and features, the Commitment of Traders report, currency ETFs, the NFA’s no-hedging rule, how futures margin is determined and currency options. I also enjoyed reading the author’s many intrepid and often contrarian assertions like, “Stop loss orders make more money for brokerage firms than they save traders.”
Overall, I would have to say that this is now my favorite book on trading currencies and the one I would recommend to other traders. After acquiring a beginner’s familiarity with the basics of how currencies are quoted and measured, this is where I suggest you turn.
Ares Fuentes (verified owner) –
Carley Garner has created the perfect book for anyone interested in getting started in currency trading. Whether you are an experienced trader of stocks or options looking to diversify markets you can trade or you are completely new to trading in general this book will get you on the right path very quickly.
The book warns novices of both the dangers and possible rewards of trading currencies. “The goal is to give you a realistic idea of what to expect in order to avoid becoming a statistic”.
The author takes you through currency trading step by step from understanding the difference between FOREX and currency futures to how to trade them. The reader will get an understanding of each currency pair and a table with each three letter abbreviation for currencies and the order in which they are paired. You are advised to stick with the currency ‘majors’ for liquidity and avoid the ‘minors’ so you are not hurt with the wide bid/ask spreads in low volume markets.
Currency pair values per contract are $100,000 per standard contract, $10,000 per mini contract, and $1,000 per micro. The book also has a table for currency futures contracts.
While FOREX traders are able to leverage their trades with 50 to 1 margin the author warns traders about the dangers of leverage and how it can wipe out your account. There is always an equal downside risk for every possible upside profit with leverage and currency traders would be wise to trade appropriate position sizes that does not put their entire account at risk in one trade.
Carley warns readers that many FOREX brokers that claim to be commission free are really just taking the other side of your trades as off exchange trades instead of executing your trades on the open market like currency futures brokers do through a centralized and regulated exchange. Many FOREX brokers make their money through the bid/ask spreads that you buy and sell at when getting in and out of trades. Also FOREX trading has counter party risks while currency futures trading is guaranteed by the exchange to make all parties whole.
“FX and futures traders are not buying or selling an asset; instead they are trading a liability that is dependent, or derived, from the value of the underlying asset; thus, they are known as derivatives.”
She also covers different technical indicators to use in your trading and how they measure price to give buy and sell signals. You will also get the basic styles of trading and what usually works in the currency markets.
I strongly advise any trader interested in trading currency markets to first read this book by Carley Garner before you venture into those waters.
Byron Holt (verified owner) –
I have been a student of the markets for nearly a decade and Ms. Garner taught or confirmed things I have only suspected or flat out never knew.
Ms. Garner’s writing style is such that anyone who plays the market should be able to comprehend but yet at the same time be entertained by it. The only thing I really disagreed with, it is not her fault but rather seems to be a publishing industry wide occurrence, the false assumption in most of the book that one will hold the future/ option till expiration day. On one page Carley did acknowledge that approximately 95% + of all activity is for speculation purposes.
With the above being said I did appreciate the chapters on speculation and day trading. Ms. Garner did a great job in combining fundamental and technical analysis as few can and still make sense. Some of the more informative tid bits I found were:
• Where and how day trading margin amounts are determined
• Which items to avoid and why
• Some international resources to delve into for additional fundamental analysis
• Position and reportable limit times
• And lastly, why the price of gold is impacted by wedding seasons
Mabel Carson (verified owner) –
Carley Garner’s readable, understandable introduction to currency trading (Forex), spot markets, futures and currency ETF is a soft cover book to keep next to your trading platform and refer to frequently and reliably. Garner is candid, analytical and a pleasure to refer to you in those tight stressful trading moments.
Madeleine Bartlett (verified owner) –
I feel sorry for new traders that walk into this book. She is ether a poor forex trader or needs to learn how to trade forex.Forex markets are NOT THAT dangerous and the top traders are not returning 13% like the book states, it is more common to return 60 80% just read Peter brandts book and see realistic #s.My fund returns 49 at a minimum,top traders are more like 80 100 in a 5 year streak. Her out look is very negative and not accurate. For people who don’t know forex is the most liquid market on earth meaning the safest to trade because manipulation is almost imposable unless you have 1 trillion dollars to push around. Is this book written for only women??? because the only referral is SHE OR HER and women are not that common in trading. If she had any class she would write him or her but there must be some motive not related to trading. I trade forex successfully and bought this book on line for a present and did not pay attention to the author and ended up with this by mistake.After reading it it will be the first book in my life I will return, I could not give my money for such a bias and basic reading.This book will feed well with new traders that know nothing about forex.Go to […] futures.com and down load all the info for free and it will have no bias in it. Our school has returned all of our books from this publisher.
Amani Wilkerson (verified owner) –
Let me start by saying I knew nothing about FOREX or currency trading before reading this book. My wife has an aunt who supposedly made a ton of money in this arena by sitting at the exchange every day, observing the trading boards and making trades.
Ms. Garner has a very straightforward, factual writing style and to me it is rather dry. It’s like reading a textbook (which I guess it is). She wastes no time with fluff but writes directly about each topic. For the most part I found that to be a good thing, although in some areas I think some elaboration or further explanation would have been beneficial. The goal of this book is to give the reader a good foundation or understanding of FOREX – to demystify it and also point out the risks and pitfalls of the market, especially for those who see it as a get-rich quick speculation scheme.
After reading the book I have decided this is not an “investment” for me. I appreciate the book because at least now I understand the concepts and the mechanics behind the transactions, as well as strategies. For anyone who is considering pursuing these types of transactions, I would recommend this book as a good way to get started.
Philip O’Neill (verified owner) –
I just finished reading this book and I found it very helpful. I also consider myself reasonably experienced in the financial markets (stock, options and futures – but not currencies). I have read many books that are loaded with anecdotal information, too much introductory material and little in the way of good content. This was not one of them. Somehow, Carley has managed to write an introductory book that has a substantial amount of meat to it. It is laden with common sense and realistic expectations. Carley does a terrific job explaining the various pitfalls of trading, leverage, calculations and the other various ways you can trade currencies today. Her explanation on the differences between Forex brokers (dealing- desk and ECN) and Futures brokers along with the various products and associated cost is well worth more than the cost of the book alone. Anyone who doesn’t understand the cost differences between fixed pip-spread, ECN pip spread with commissions and equivalent Future contracts with their commissions is going to lose more than the cost of this book. In the currency markets (all markets actually), that type of ignorance will cost you every time. I see that some people are concerned about the author’s bias given that she is a Futures broker. I am unconcerned about that. Everyone has a preference for a reason and that does not constitute a detrimental bias. I have several different trading/investing accounts and therefore, I have access to quoting in both the Futures and Forex markets and in the case of Forex, I can get quoted based on dealing-desk rates or ECN rates with commissions. I can (and did) verify the accuracy of the authors statements regarding the costs of trading currencies in these various formats. Regardless of whether she has a lean to the Futures markets or not, that doesn’t change the validity, accuracy and helpfulness of the information she presents. It is solid content and I would recommend this book to anyone. Indeed, I have recommended it to a few of my friends who do trade Forex. When I queried them about their knowledge of alternate ways they can trade currencies (and save costs as it turns out), they didn’t know. I pulled up my trading platforms, showed them a few things mentioned in the book and received comments along the line of “Well, that’s on my summer reading list”. Nuf’ said.