Trading Commodities and Financial Futures: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering the Markets, Third Edition

Trading Commodities and Financial Futures: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering the Markets, Third Edition

by George Kleinman
Released October 2004
Publisher(s): Pearson
ISBN: 0131476548

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Book description

More fortunes are made and lost more quickly in the commodity futures markets than anywhere else. It is a game of consequence where profits won by one player are lost by another. The stakes are high, but for those who know how to play well, the rewards can be immense. Trading Commodities and Financial Futures shows you how to play the game to win.

In this book, one of the world's most experienced traders introduces a new step-by-step methodology built on more than twenty-five years of success. George Kleinman begins with the basics—including a complete primer on how futures and options trading works, how traders' psychology impacts the markets, and how to avoid the pitfalls that trip up so many traders.

This edition offers updated coverage of electronic trading, the latest contracts, and state-of-the-art trading techniques you won't find in any competing book. Previous editions of Kleinman's Commodity Futures and Options became international best sellers. This one offers even more insight for winning the commodities game—and winning big.

Winning in a zero-sum game
For every commodities winner, there's a loser: here's how to be the winner

The trend is your friend
How to use techniques designed to generate profits in a trending market

The fundamentals: supply and demand in every key market
Mastering the markets, from crude oil to soybeans, gold to coffee, foreign exchange to stock index futures

TMVTT: The most valuable technical tool
A unique trading methodology—how it works and how to use it

When to get in, when to get out
How to recognize the beginning—and end—of major market moves

Twenty-five trading secrets of the pros
A lifetime's experience, distilled into twenty-five crucial tips

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
  2. FINANCIAL TIMES Prentice Hall
  3. Financial Times Prentice Hall Books
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Preface
  6. Introduction
  7. Basic training: a futures primer
    1. Futures markets and the futures contract
    2. It is as easy to sell short as to buy long
    3. Margin and leverage
    4. Delivery months
    5. Brokers and commissions
    6. The players
    7. A hedging example
    8. The Exchange, 'open outcry' and the clearinghouse
    9. The regulators and regulations
    10. How to place an order
    11. Conclusion
  8. The intermediate futures trading course (or just enough knowledge to make you dangerous!)
    1. Zero sum game
    2. Money management
    3. Contrary opinion theory
    4. Spreads, straddles, and switches
    5. Normal or inverted?
    6. The “Voice from the Tomb”
  9. A diabolical story
  10. The options primer
    1. What is an option?
    2. How options work
  11. Advanced option strategies
    1. Buying options to protect futures
    2. Writing options as a hedging strategy
    3. Covered option writing
    4. Option spreads
    5. Straddles and strangles
    6. Butterfly spreads
    7. Ratios
  12. Eight winning option trading rules
    1. Stay away from deep in-the-money options
    2. Stay away from deep out-of-the-money options
    3. Trade slightly out-of-the-money, at-the-money, or slightly in-the-money options
    4. There is a time for all seasons
    5. Covered call writing is a good strategy for what appears to be a bullish environment, and covered put writing is generally good for what looks like the bear
    6. In “normal” markets, write straddles and strangles
    7. Look for opportunities to backspread
    8. Use options to hedge a profitable futures position
  13. How to analyze the markets fundamentally
    1. Fundamental analysis
    2. Technical analysis
    3. Which is the best way to go?
    4. Financial futures
    5. Currencies
    6. Energy
    7. Agricultures
    8. Meats
    9. Metals
  14. The advanced futures trading course (or how to analyze the markets technically)
    1. Does technical analysis really work?
    2. Charts
    3. Gaps
    4. Open interest
    5. Point and figure charts
    6. Japanese candlestick charts
    7. Spread trading—a valuable forecasting tool
    8. Why technical analysis makes sense
  15. The most valuable technical tool (TMVTT)
    1. Bottom pickers versus trend followers
    2. A moving picture
    3. A moving average primer
    4. The simple moving average
    5. How many days should you use in your moving average?
    6. Bottom line
  16. How I use “TMVTT”
    1. Step 1
    2. Step 2
    3. Additional rules for maximum success
  17. A day trader's secrets
    1. Your nine essential day trader's rules
    2. The trend reversal day trading system
  18. Your state of mind (trader's psychology)
    1. Motive
    2. Six hurdles to successful trading
    3. Money management
    4. If you don't feel right, you won't trade right
    5. Your advantage
  19. Twenty-five trading secrets of the pros
    1. Secret 1
    2. Secret 2
    3. Secret 3
    4. Secret 4
    5. Secret 5
    6. Secret 6
    7. Secret 7
    8. Secret 8
    9. Secret 9
    10. Secret 10
    11. Secret 11
    12. Secret 12
    13. Secret 13
    14. Secret 14
    15. Secret 15
    16. Secret 16
    17. Secret 17
    18. Secret 18
    19. Secret 19
    20. Secret 20
    21. Secret 21
    22. Secret 22
    23. Secret 23
    24. Secret 24
    25. Secret 25
  20. Jesse's secret
    1. The secret to making the big money is to maximize the big move
    2. Jesse Livermore
    3. Those who can be right and sit tight
  21. World futures and options exchanges
    1. Argentina
    2. Australia
    3. Austria
    4. Belgium
    5. Brazil
    6. Canada
    7. Chile
    8. China
    9. Denmark
    10. Finland
    11. France
    12. Germany
    13. Greece
    14. Hungary
    15. India
    16. Israel
    17. Italy
    18. Japan
    19. Korea
    20. Malaysia
    21. Netherlands
    22. New Zealand
    23. Norway
    24. Singapore
    25. Spain
    26. Sweden
    27. Switzerland
    28. United Kingdom
    29. United States
  22. Index

Product information

  • Title: Trading Commodities and Financial Futures: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering the Markets, Third Edition
  • Author(s): George Kleinman
  • Release date: October 2004
  • Publisher(s): Pearson
  • ISBN: 0131476548