The Big Trade: Simple Strategies for Maximum Market Returns

(28 customer reviews)

$15.81

Author(s)

Format

PDF

Pages

128

Published Date

2013

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Description

The Big Trade presents a new system that helps filter out the noise. It leaves behind only meaningful signals you need to listen to in order to make profitable trades. Employing simple math and charts, it codifies the past behavior of traders in your favourite stock to assist you to recognize high probability trading patterns. Trading systems shouldn’t be as complex as the marketsthemselves. But finding a simple trading system capable offiltering out all the noise and extracting gold from the ore of rawmarket data can take years of frustrating and expensive trial anderror. Unless, that is, you have a wise and patient mentor likePeter Pham.

The Big Trade combines Pham’s account of hispersonal journey on the road to trading success and thepowerful lessons he learned along the way with valuableinsights into the strategies of some of the most successful tradersof all time. He describes how, through years of testing, analysis,and practice, he arrived at the principles and practices that formthe basis of his trading system a system with which he hasachieved nothing less than astonishing success. The Big Trade delivers:

  • A holistic trading system based on a deep understanding of howthe market is structured and how it behaves as well as time-testedtrading principles and practices
  • A simple, highly effective method for assessing risk and rewardand finding high-probability opportunities that’s as easy to learnas it is to use
  • Basic math and charts that help you to clearly define pasttrading behaviors for specific stocks without gimmicks ormagic formulas
  • Powerful analytical techniques that go beyond traditional priceanalysis to focus on price trend probabilities across an array oftime intervals
  • Proven strategies for trading success adapted from tradinglegends, such as Toby Crabel and Victor Niederhoffer
  • Keen insights into human behavior and pattern recognition andhow to translate that knowledge to stock trading success.

Arming you with a simple, proven approach to assessing themarkets and defining your odds of success when making a trade,The Big Trade is a must-have resource for traders andinvestors of all styles and levels of experience from noviceday traders to seasoned institutional investors.

Contents:

  • Breaking with Tradition
  • The Conditions of Change
  • Wax On, Wax Off
  • As the Market Turns . . .
  • The Range Is Your Friend
  • Closing Arguments
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28 reviews for The Big Trade: Simple Strategies for Maximum Market Returns

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  1. Avalynn Grant (verified owner)

    A Great book! Lots of great info, very informative. I recommend this book to every body. Read it right now!

  2. Brynlee Gill (verified owner)

    If you’re looking to get into stock trading and don’t know where to start, this is the perfect book for you. This book has great tips and is simple enough for newbie stock traders to understand.

  3. Leon Fernandez (verified owner)

    This book is the prefect book for those new to stock trading. This book presents simple math and charts to help you learn how to get started trading without confusing you with overly difficult terms.

  4. Brycen Holmes (verified owner)

    This is one of the best books for new traders who are looking for helpful and useful information. I found the book to be easy to understand and it helped me to completely understand how all of the markets work especially what many of the symbols I have wondered about what many of those really mean let alone the names of them. This book is a wonderful guide that is perfect for beginners to advanced traders.

  5. Amara Rich (verified owner)

    If you’re new to learning about stock trading and don’t know where to start, this is the book to get you started. The author offers some great tips & advice; it covers all the important aspects of trading including the fundamentals and the technical stuff. I have read a few other books on trading for beginners, but this one, by far was very easy to understand and it is broken down into straight-forward, easy-to-understand steps, and is simple enough for newbie stock traders to understand.

  6. Miller Romero (verified owner)

    If you are looking for a good and most importantly, easy way to understand the markets, this book does it.

    I use many of the lesson I have learned in this book over the past couple of weeks to tweak my current portfolio.

  7. Zaniyah Larsen (verified owner)

    For the fainthearted, the market can be a mysterious and confusing place where profits are made and losses can be catastrophic. In the relatively short but clearly written book the author shares his method for mastering the market by gauging probability by studying data and making decisions based on analysis, not emotion. There are plenty of charts and graphs and I found the information contained in the appendices especially valuable. But while the author’s system is simple, it is not necessarily easy. It takes determination, discipline and an ability to assess performance objectively. This book is worthwhile for both the individual investor and the financial advisor. Recommended.

  8. Matthias Mosley (verified owner)

    I cannot easily get into this book. Although his techniques make sense, his way of explaining them is too wordy or roundabout it some way – almost as if he was lengthening the text so that he could make a thicker book. This is exactly what they tell you not to do in technical writing, and something you don’t expect out of a mathematical type of guy (which he obviously is).

    Besides that, I don’t necessarily see myself practicing this kind of trading. It seems like some good solid investments would do just as well in the long run, and take a lot less time and stress in the interim. That said, if a reader is intent on becoming a trader by trade, then perhaps this is worthwhile reading. That was the case with the author, which led him to this type of trading.

    It has its moments and teaches the reader some things along the way, but it is not by any means my favourite book in the genre.

  9. Bailey McBride (verified owner)

    What separates this book for me from other books on trading and investing is that Peter’s approach acknowledges that we are not perfect actors; that as much as trading requires a person to quell their emotions and be objective that is often so much easier said than done. This is a very human and personal book.

    Peter’s approach helps to make that process easier by helping you assess the odds of a trade in a completely different way than traditional technical analysis.

    What I was surprised by while reading this was how so many of these concepts are applicable outside of the markets. This is a very wise book, written by someone whose interests extend far beyond the next tick on a chart. I especially like the brief but powerful discussion about charts and optical illusions.

    Peter’s book cured me of drawing lines on charts and expecting them to mean something. I’m still not a good trader, but Peter’s book explained to me why I’m not and that was more than worth the price of admission.

  10. Ariel Sawyer (verified owner)

    There are so many trading books written every year and this book does contain some wisdom to make it’s short 150 pages worth reading but it’s also not an easy system to implement. I have been trading for over 20 years and it’s still one of the most difficult things to do well. What I really admired about the author was how he poured himself into the markets and obviously that’s what led him to write the book. His “obsession” with the market was really the difference maker in his trading and I think that is why a book simply can’t make you a great trader.. it takes so much effort and time for you as the individual that most will quit before it happens. This book can’t make up for that shortfall. In summary, I’m not sure anything in the book will help you be a great trader except the motivating history of the author’s respect for the hard work and study it takes to understand the market.

  11. Alfredo Salgado (verified owner)

    If you are an average person looking to maximize your stock market earnings, this book will not be that helpful. I think that should be partially evident for potential readers based on the item description and its relation of the books use of charts, math etc. Unfortunately, it does advertise that this book is for the novice to the pro, and it isn’t.

    I’m an upper-level novice with personal business experience who has studied a bit about stock in academia and independently, and while this book is readable, it is geared toward someone with even more experience than I have. It doesn’t suffer from high brow word usage or niche term overload, but there is not enough context to really seize the day and utilize the information in this book — either independently or with an adviser.

    Despite its erroneous description, I am giving the book three stars instead of less because it is well-written/borderline conversational in many areas which would make it more enjoyable for its true target audience.

  12. Cara Kline (verified owner)

    This book was very detailed and concise which is something that I exactly needed at this time. I have looked at get into trading but I wasn’t entirely too sure if I would be able to figure it all out. One of the problems I have found is that trading books often have many charts to follow and the text explaining all of them appears several pages later. I like that the author made that part easier and it saved me. Thank you.

  13. Deandre Silva (verified owner)

    The ideas are good but not explained very well, also when I checked his examples the numbers don’t come out properly, for example in one part he has a table that contains values and if you cross check with the chart some of the values are incorrect.
    Basically, there are loads of issues like that. You really have to concentrate and check every figure in detail in order to work out if you have misunderstood something or if the examples are wrong.
    Another example is his calculations assume if a close is above the open then an uptrend is intact whereas it is only intact if the close is above the previous day’s close. The difference is slight but observable when you play around with the data.
    I really wanted to like this book (I think it has some worth) but to make headway you have to go over everything yourself and work it all out from first principles which is a bit time consuming.

  14. Veronica Winters (verified owner)

    Peter Pham takes most of the subjectivity out of trading by applying simple statistics from historical stock data. I’m a little bit skeptic about the method, but still it’s a simple and original take on the markets.

  15. Jaliyah Ross (verified owner)

    The author’s personal story is interesting. He’s also a good writer. The book is best suited for those into trading rather than long-term investing. The strategies wouldn’t work for me, but will probably be very helpful for others. I stayed interested throughout the entire book, although I speed-read the parts with calculations, statistics, etc. That’s just not my thing. If it is yours, you will very possibly enjoy the personal story and the strategies described.

  16. Corbin Hurley (verified owner)

    Face it, there’s very little new under the trading sun, strategy-wise, but presumably there are always new investors making their way through an ever growing sea of media, advice, literature, and historical data in search of a solid system to guide them . Sure, plenty will always be searching for silver-bullet programs to achieve fast profits, but Pham is not speaking directly to such an audience, or I suspect he’d do his best to discourage such quixotic thinking.

    I’d regard Pham’s approach as a sensible extrapolation and refinement of known quant techniques pertaining to price and volume. The most important ever-obvious-but-so-hard-to-swallow idea he shares is we should abandon the notion that market behavior can in any sense be predicted.

    Rather Pham believes markets can best be viewed as interconnected streams of probabilities rather than a treasure map of hidden absolute predictors.

    For example, Pham regards the chart pattern matching of technical analysis as a distraction that can fool us into believing we see and know more than we do – an interesting idea he calls `multistability’ that explains our response to optical illusions. It’s no surprise the resulting false confidence can frequently cost us money. While fundamental analysis may reveal what fueled past growth honest practitioners will concede it’s in no way a firm predictor of future growth.

    Pham’s approach can be summed up as stripping out as much data noise as possible and focusing on a small set of probabilities and trade setups. Trends and ranges involve interpretation and, like all interpretation, they include the potential for error and multiple viewpoints. Prices and volume are facts and, in the end, the only certainty we have as traders to base our actions upon.

    He regards the four known price points (high, low, open, close) as what really matter, particularly opening range that he describes as `a slice of price, not a slice of time’ and a source of `high probability trending moves’. He focuses on building a set of small quantitative tools (formula) he believes are more useful than the multicolored dashboards of charts, screens, monitors, and calculators many firms use to appeal to potential clients.

    The writing style is refreshing clear-headed and dialed-down emotionally – as Pham believes our trading actions should be. There’s none of the faux street guy toughness and macho posing I’ve read in other trading books – an attitude that often masks unimaginative takes on well-worn trading strategies that can have you looking like a genius, ‘part of the time under certain market conditions’. Nor is Pham trying to sell you on subscribing to his website or newsletter.

    I appreciated the author’s candor when he says the book isn’t just for those who want to trade themselves, but should serve as a guide to communicate with the person actively managing your money.

    Remove emotion, unfounded perceptions, and interpretive ambiguity from your trading actions. Simple, but far from simplistic, and requiring a discipline of mind and emotion.

    `The Big Trade’ will appeal to people with some investing experience who are serious about committing time and resources to tailoring a trading system that works for them – and are put off by so much of the high-energy advice/entertainment industry that’s grown up around the markets.

  17. Ramon Young (verified owner)

    It is never a waste of time to invest a few hours to improve yourself. This relatively short book has some good tips to share on trading stocks. Whether you will benefit greatly from this depends upon if you are willing to invest much more time in following the author’s exercises. On one hand the author suggests formulas and spreadsheets that will make you a stock market guru, then he will compare the stock market to a hand of Texas Hold’em. It does leave you with a certain amount of doubt whether there is any point in trying to outsmart the market.

    He outlines his intent in one sentence on page 24, “The good news is that I believe the merging of quantitative research and market expertise, chart analysis, and timing is not only possible but is the most successful approach to trading today.” He calls it “simple”, but I didn’t get that feeling. If you love tracking stocks on spreadsheets, crunching numbers, and doing the math you will find this book pretty interesting. If you want to learn more about the stock market in general there are better works out there. In fact many of the leading online brokers offer good educational opportunities that I would recommend before investing your time in “The Big Trade.”

  18. Denver Farley (verified owner)

    So, one of the measures I use when evaluting an investing book is whether or not I’d use it…this one is clearly divided. On on hand I’d be unlikely to follow the direct advice provided. On the other hand, I would use this book to research examples and for general information on strategies that are less family. I’ve chosen to give it a neutral rating.

    I’m always concerned when an author claims to have lost money during the last big downturn but then made it all back during a clear upswing in the market…rather like the one we’ve had over the past few years. Let’s face it, it’s easier to make money when everything is going up up up. Staying power and retaining those gains during the decline is when it gets tricky. Of course, in general, this book is geared toward traders rather than investors…a distinctly different audience. Many experts agree that trading is now becoming a better strategy than long-term investing….although more of a conservative nature, there is certainly some solid support for that premise.

    If you have been a buy and hold investor but are interested in trading…this is as good a book as any to help show you the ropse.

  19. Reed Dawson (verified owner)

    The basic ideas underlying Mr. Pham’s probabilistic approach to trading can be illustrated with the following example loosely adapted from the one given in the book:

    Walking to work, Peter often passes by the same few streets. On one of those streets, Larry has observed that when Peter makes a left turn at the corner, he usually makes a stop at the coffee house. One morning, someone asked Larry to guess whether Peter would make a stop at that coffee house, while Peter was just about to walk past them. Larry did not answer immediately. He waited until Peter made his move at the street corner. If Peter had continued walking in the same direction or made a right turn at the corner, Larry would have answered “No!”; a left turn, and Larry would have answered “Probably!”

    When trading stocks, we often have to engage in a similar kind of probabilistic reasoning about price movements. Say, the price of a stock has just gone up by 10 cents from its previous-day high 15 minutes after the opening bell. What should we make of it? Is the stock setting up for a new high? And if so, what’s the likelihood that the stock price can go up as high as one dollar more within a week?

    Just as Larry was smart to make use of probabilistic data built up from historical observations of Peter’s movement patterns to inform his decision-making, Mr. Pham contends that we too can give ourselves a potential trading edge if we can make use of similar probabilistic data for a stock’s price movement patterns. Mr. Pham shows us, in this book, how to build up such data from a stock’s historical data (accessible for free through such sources as Yahoo, etc.), and use them in conjunction with other information — such as what trading volumes and volume deltas may be signaling about investors’ sentiments — to inform our trading decisions.

    While I have no doubt that Mr. Pham’s trading approach works to some extent, the degree to which ordinary retail investors and traders can make it work for them depends on how much time they can dedicate to such intense research and data collection, and then to use that information in a disciplined manner. It should also be noted that in any kind of probabilistic reasoning, sampling biases can affect decision-making quality. So whether or not you’ll find this book useful depends on whether you’re willing and able to put in the required work. The book itself is written reasonably well, but personally speaking, it didn’t really give me a whole lot of new insights.

  20. Jefferson Mendez (verified owner)

    This was a good trading book written by a trader who spent thousands of hours learning to become successful in the markets. What he learned through endless study and trading is the key to success is not a predictive market model of what will happen next but to simply play the historical odds of how an equity’s price action acted in the past based on the preceding price range. He suggests not to care why something in the market is happening, to simply play the price action as it unfolds. The author suggests using the opening range in your time frame for the day, week, or month as a powerful tool to trade off of and help refine your timing on when to enter a trade. I agree. This books suggests simplicity in trading using price and volume and the probabilities of a stock moving through the opening range of your time frame based on past price action. There is no prediction only probability.

    Mr. Pham suggest that pre-market media chatter is just distracting as too many technical indicators, listen to price.

    He writes that there are only two market states: consolidation and trending. Either the market is trading in a range around ‘fair’ value or it is trending into a new range.

    I loved the quote from the book “Failures are opportunities for growth and understanding, but only within the context of being successful.” Losses should be kept with in the context of a trade, a losing trade does not invalidate your method.

    Even though through trading the author initially achieved financial independence, later a bad business enterprise outside of trading caused him to lose it all.

    This book is better than most because of the authors insistence on study and hard work to learn how to trade and then to simply trade price action based on the probabilities of your studies. This is a great little trading book that will steer traders in the right direction for success.

  21. Wrenley Nunez (verified owner)

    Most trading books are awful. The Big Trade is a slim volume that delivers with actual strategies, some nice inner-game tips and readable style. Pham lays out his system in pinpoint detail, and he doesn’t waste any words doing so. His strategy primarily revolves around breakouts and reversals, using Excel to calculate the probabilities of each occurring. It’s a mean reversion strategy in many ways, although it does ride a trend, so I suppose it allows you to catch big moves in extremely rare circumstances. Pham himself admits that he got hammered in the 2008 crisis, although he claims that this was because of diverting from his system, not because of it.

    I have reservations; I think under “normal” conditions (whatever those are), the system outlined in this book would be profitable, although perhaps not generating sacks of money. In times of turpitude and great volatility, however — that is, in situations where securities are ignoring past resistance/support levels and “remembered” probabilities — I think that it could really burn you. Of course, it’s difficult to tell when everything is about to go pear-shaped, and I do suppose that the system could be modified to better handle such situations. Nonetheless, it strikes me that what is contained within the Big Trade, while unquestionably useful, is incomplete and somewhat dangerous to use without some tweaks.

    Nonetheless, this is relative commonplace in trading texts, so I’m only docking one star. I think the concepts, if nothing else, are invaluable to new traders — the fact that trading is a probabilities game is crucial. I think Pham misses out on the fact, a little bit, that it doesn’t only matter the amount of times you win, but the amount you win (and lose) each time; he seems focused on high-winning percentage trades. This will appeal to many people, but again, in times of crisis, these opportunities to “skim” or scalp small amounts become vastly more difficult.

    Recommended; just understand that this isn’t the whole picture (but then, no book is). I’d recommend grabbing The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; it illustrates some of the shortcomings of the strategies within The Big Trade, and might spur some thought on how to plug them.

  22. Eliza Herrera (verified owner)

    I really liked reading the biographical information about the author and his history- what led him to the financial markets; the obsessiveness and drive that brought him the success he enjoys today. i realized that i had actually read various articles written by Peter Pham in investment newsletters/websites previously, and had immensely enjoyed his conversational style and contemplative philosophy and humility, mixed with his solid knowledge of both broad economic theory as well as the minute logistics of trading.

    That said, i must say, that as a lay reader, and big novice in the markets (although i’m trying to learn more, and this book was eye-opening), i felt this book was not one that would benefit someone in my novice boat, as much as another who might be very serious about trading as a profession, perhaps. Pham’s timeframes and methodologies are clearly geared towards movements in the market, up and down, during a day– i.e. focus on opening price ranges, probabilites of breaks in the price moves, volume data. all very interesting stuff, for sure, and his book is titled “the BIG TRADE” after all! Pham does lead you by the hand on how to pull historical data to try your own quantitative analysis of stocks and market trends –creating your own tools, and other goodies like that. one thing i noticed right away, however, is that i found many sites where i’d have to pay to subscribe to access some of the data (esp. historical) he is using. not being advanced enough to pay for any good subscription services at this point in my knowledge, i was holding off. But, I am considering taking the next steps.

    If you want to be a a serious trader, and are driven and willing to take that plunge, this is an excellent book to read. Even though i don’t see short-term trading in my immediate future, I found this book valuable from a standpoint of understanding the market in general, differing ways data points are used, and the mind-set of those (millions?) of people moving the markets every day. All in all a good read!

  23. Zoey Lawson (verified owner)

    Awesome read. It was a life changer for me. Truly and honestly! Feel free to contact me for an intellectual elaboration and eye opener. This book is a game changer–the concept is proven. Hard to put into words what I’ve experienced with the lead of this book. Thanks a bunch, Mr Pham!

  24. Lane Hawkins (verified owner)

    This book has some useful nuggets but it is difficult to link the useful information together because of the author’s focus on his own personal story and the musical theme of the book.
    I suggest reading “The Perfect Speculator” by Brad Koteshwar and “Unholy Grails – A New Road to Wealth” by Nick Radge instead for a perspective on when and why to buy certain stocks. I also suggest reading “All About Market Timing, Second Edition” by Leslie N. Masonson for additional insight on market timing. “Strategic Stock Trading” by Michael Swanson provides a good overall perspective on trading stocks but lacks the level of detail available in the books listed above. I suppose some level of psychology is part of stock trading but if you want less zen and more nuts and bolts, read the books I suggested. My focus is ETF investing but I am looking to branch (back) into stocks.

  25. Caden Velazquez (verified owner)

    Helped me to realize that entrepreneurship, a disciplined and determined mindset and trading goes hand in hand. Easy read.
    I need to reread the spreadsheet info

  26. Rylan Stafford (verified owner)

    The strategy describe in the book is worth the reading. Tested it in FX and Commodity market, I am amazed at the effect fullness

  27. Lucia Jennings (verified owner)

    I found much truth in the analysis presented and it helped me understand what parts of various trading systems I have used are based on probabilities and what parts are just personal bias. Great writing and insight!

  28. River Soto (verified owner)

    I enjoyed reading this book. While the concepts presented by the book are interesting and thoughtful, I found the best part was that it challenged you to find your own strategies. It took me quite a long time to read since I would get side-tracked after every chapter. I wanted to research and apply the ideas right away. That motivation in itself is a good selling point for the book. For the cost of the book, I received a fresh outlook on investing along with some new tools to use on a daily basis.

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