Starting Out in Futures Trading

by Mark J. Powers

Book Overview

One of the best-known futures traders explains how to trade for profit in today's global futures marketplace

Look into the bookcase of any successful futures trader, and odds are you'll find a worn, well-used copy of Mark Powers's Starting Out In Futures Trading. In this new edition--the best-selling book's first update since 1993--Powers reflects on the many new forces that are shaping the industry. From new rules and regulations to the emergence...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071363904
• ISBN13: 9780071363907
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Very Good Information

This is a good book for the basics of futures trading. It has a lot of the basic terms and information you need to get a quick edge in trading. Will it be the last and only book you buy on futures? Probably not! This is a good start that will peak your curiousity. I recommend it.

All you need to know about futures markets...

This book definitely provides a lot of information regarding futures. It is the best reference book on futures that I have ever read.

Buy the updated version!!

Please note: This review refers to the 1991 edition. It is a good book, but this edition is plagued with typos, and mistakes in at least one chart. Don't make the same mistake I did; buy the last edition (I bought mine on the store with very little time ...) I haven't had the chance to check out the latest version (Starting Out in Futures Trading), my guess is that it's corrected and updated. About his writing, I like the fact that he mixes personal experience with academic and corporate studies about the market. I think the book becomes very useful that way.

Good Content / Great Value

For the price this is a great book to learn and help understand the specifics that make up all the basics in trading commodity-futures. After reading this book, I felt as if I had taken a formal college course on the subject of Futures and understood it much better from various angles now. There's no "hype" in the book, no agendas, no further products or services to buy being pitched to you, just plain vanilla (ok, french vanilla) basics being laid out for you in textbook fashion for you to digest in your own terms. I like that - it's refreshing in a way. It is probably like this because it was really written 20+ years ago (don't worry, it's been revised many times to be modernized - 5th edition, 1993). The book was originally written and printed in "Commodities" magazine as a popular mini-course series (before the magazine changed it's name to the modern "Futures" magazine we know it as today). Even though I knew much of the content from personal experience (the most costly way) or from other readings, my CTA, etc, I did not always understand the "why" behind the rules I was following & how the markets work the way they do from both a technical and fundmental perspective (dynamics). Of the some 28 chapters, I really took interest in almost every one. I can't say that about most of the other trading books I've read. Put it this way... if I could keep only 5 trading books, this would be one of them. You'll likely dump more than that on the commissions for 1 trade - or, worse yet, even more than that on 1 bad trade. ** Beginners, I recommend the following: If your goal is to have deeper pockets from trading - then you must first go deeper in your understanding of futures markets & trading them (i.e. Read the book).