Swing Trading for Dummies

by Omar Bassal

Book Overview

Take advantage of price swings in strongly trending securities and pump up your portfolio

Want to know the strategies of successful swing trading? This friendly guide covers the ins and outs of this risky but profitable investing approach, explaining all the basics in plain English. You'll see how to use the two investment approaches - technical and fundamental analysis - to indentify promising securities in strongly trending markets. In...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470293683
• ISBN13: 9780470293683
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: For Dummies
• Length: 330 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Great book!!

I purchased Swing Trading for Dummines ( along with Online Trading for Dummmies, Technical Analysis for Dummies and Market Timing for Dummies.) and I found this to be a great book that is very useful and informative and well fitted to my trading style. I'm a short term trader with little capitol avaiable to invest ( less than 1500 ) and this book has given me a solid foundation and taught me many things that I didn't know before. My copy of this book is full of pages with folded over corners which I marked because they had especially useful and significant information. I found the sections on chart reading to be especially helpful, valuable and informative ( though the Technical Analysis for Dummies book covered chart reading in much more detail). This is a PRACTICAL book that should be useful, informative and valuable for any beginning or intermediate short term investor. Highly recommended.

Swing Trading for Dummies

Excellent publication, well written, easy to read and comprehend. As a swing trader it gave me the wear-with-all to undertake and understand swing trading. Would recommend to anyone undertaking technical analysis and swing trading.

Well rounded, excellent

I have read a few books on stocks. This one is the best. It doesnt make it quick and easy, but it makes it practical and true. Its good mainly for swing traders, however i think that everyone can benefit from it.... BUY IT!!

Swing Trading Globally and Multi-asset Classes

I always thought "swing trading" referred to trading with a time horizon of a few days. This author, however, defines it as trading with a time horizon of a few days to a few weeks. So this book is geared to trades that could last a month or long--something I consider outside the realm of short term trading. In any case, the book is split into five parts: Part 1 discusses the fundamental info (how markets work, what things to look for in a broker and deciding whether to trade using fundamental analysis or technical analysis). What I did appreciate in Part 1 is the author's focus on multi-asset classes and global stocks. Most short term trading books I've read seem to believe that only one asset class exists in the world: U.S. stocks. This one takes a different approach. The author stresses the importance of looking beyond the traditional pale of U.S. stocks and examines international stocks, commodities (via ETFs) and currencies. By expanding your investment universe, you're more likely to find securities with the right characteristics. Part 2 has three chapters on technical analysis covering (1) charting, (2) indicators and (3) trading ranges or trends. Almost any technician knows how to interpret MACD or Stochastics, but how to use them properly is key. For example, the author stresses the importance of "only going on green". That is, we often find charts or indicators with buy signals but you can only buy the day a signal is actually given. Part 3 is all about fundamental analysis. I don't use fundamentals that much in my trading so I read this part more with an eye to understand certain concepts. The discussion on debt and leverage was helpful given the current financial mess we're seeing. The author appears to have been right on his call that Marvel was highly leveraged and not worth swing trading on the long side. Part 4 is perhaps the most important part of the book (and why was it put last?). It discusses risk control, developing a trading plan, using intraday charts and walking through an actual swing trade. By far, the most useful chapter was the managing risk chapter (10) because it covered position sizing, placement of stop loss orders and how to limit losses at the individual stock level and portfolio level. The last two concepts seem to be similar to Alexander Elder's "shark bite" and "piranha bite" concepts. Part 5 is the "Parts of Tens" which is made up of two "top ten" chapters: Ten simple rules for swing trading and ten deadly sins of swing trading. If you've read Parts 1 through 4, you'll already have covered both top ten lists. The sins include things like starting with too little capital, gambling on earnings dates, trading penny stocks and violating your trading plan.

Pleasantly Surprised

I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up this book at a bookstore. I normally have low expectations for Dummies titles. Let's be honest: you don't usually find gems among "Dummies" or "Idiot" books. But I can state that Swing Trading for Dummies is my favorite book on short term trading. The book is the only one I've found which provides proper coverage on all aspects of trading--from designing a trading plan (part IV) to managing risk properly (chapter 10) to performing intermarket analysis (chapter 6). While most swing traders shy away from fundamental analysis, the book covered the essential items traders should understand in a company's financial statements and how to arrive at a ball park estimate for a company's shares in a few minutes. The book has several charts to illustrate trading examples and stresses the importance of simplicity in designing a strong trading system. There was also good humor throughout which made the book an easy read.