Book Reviews: Trading Day by Day
Review by Chuck Kowalski, About.com: Commodities
Trading Day By Day is a book I was fortunate enough to find from an author I actually never heard of before. This industry is full plenty of self-promoters who care about getting their name in front of the public than being successful traders. So, I look at this an undiscovered gem. The author, F.H.“Chick” Goslin, has been trading futures since 1970 and his experience and knowledge of trading is very evident. There is no hype here, just a well-organized manual from beginning to end on how to trade futures successfully.
Three Laws of Trading
Goslin gives you the framework for how he trades with his Three Laws of Trading. The first law deals with the philosophy of trading, where the future is unknown. Basically, you don’t want to base your trading decisions on where you “know” the price will go. You cannot control the future, but you can control how you enter the future.
The Second Law of Trading states that continuation is more likely than change. In other words, follow the trend . That may sound simplistic, but many traders will ignore it or don’t have a good strategy on how to trade with the trend. This is where Goslin describes his trading methods using three different indicators to filter his trades.
The Third Law of Trading states that prices fluctuate. Of course they do, but this is where Goslin gets into more details on how to get in and out of trades. The three laws sound simplistic on the surface, but Goslin thoroughly covers all aspects of trading and what you have to do to be successful in trading futures.
Complete Trading Manual
Trading Day By Day starts off by getting you in the right frame of mind to trade. Then you are given numerous rules to follow when trading. The author, being a trader himself, is very humble in admitting that he routinely makes mistakes and that is just part of the game. I know I make more mistakes than I care to admit, but it doesn’t matter as long as I live to trade another day. Trading is a constant game of seeking improvement. The fewer mistakes you make, the higher your bottom line at the end of the year.
Goslin also provides quite a few actual charts and his analysis on how to trade them each day. This may be one of the best educational tools that many authors fail to put in trading books. He uses a charting system from SMR charts to determine the trends, but you can easily substitute you own moving averages or oscillators to come up with similar results.
Overall, Trading Day By Day is an excellent book to learn how to trade futures. Struggling traders should find this information very helpful and new traders should consider it a must read.
