The Perfect Speculator

If you’ve read other investment classics by O’Neil, Darvas, Loeb, Minervini, Livermore, Wyckoff, you will certainly enjoy this book. I’m half way through and basically every page has lessons that can be worth a million dollars to some people.John Boik considers one of the top 15 books on investing and speculating. After reading about 50 or so books on trading myself, I would agree. Instant classic. Love it. Will be re-reading this probably more than once and highlighting notes

Glad i stumbled upon this gem. This book is easy to read and distills the essence of stock speculation based on momentum strategies. The author stresses the importance of waiting for confirmation in price action and monitoring market behaviour of leading stocks. He also brings to light fundamental concepts of psychology and money management. 120 pages with a small appendix.

After starting my “Trading” journey almost a year ago I knew there was something very tricky about the market, 90% of traders fail. I said to myself “I will be in the top 10% of winners” I haven’t been very profitable but that is because I am still educating myself of the correct mindset and rules, and waiting patiently for the next uptrending market. This book has to be one that is a hidden treasure amongst the greats. Along w Darvis, Livermore, Minnervini, O’Neil, Stand Weinstein, this books worth at least 10Reads over and over by itself, the only people I know in the market are some family members that never use stops and think patience is key, they are wrong, patience is important but not losing is winning, as you will read in this book, you will understand the objective of the stock market is to fool the public with red herrings and traps, and even as myself feel that urge to trade for FOMO, it’s perfected in its way to give us just enough rope to hang ourselves, like the casino with bright lights and signs of “Big winners” we get caught in the traps of temptations. This book uncovers the basic and simple truths of the market in very easy to understand terms. I feel very lucky to have purchased this one! Highly recommended for any new or advanced “SPECULATOR”.

I believe this book will mean the most to those who got into the market ignorantly, got burned, but with newly found humility decided to come back for more (learning and gain). (The message will be wasted on someone who is riding a bull market with daily and seemingly endless highs of almost all stocks.)First, it gives a new meaning to the word "speculator". Speculators are commonly blamed for major crashes, depicted as reckless gamblers with margin accounts, destroyers of the false and idealistic image of "investors", fly by traders who gain enormous fortunes due to some shady manipulation or illegal information. Ones who play unfairly, cheating, while everybody else abides by the rules.According to the book a Perfect Speculator is almost the exact opposite of this. Like a lifelong learner of a martial art on an endless path to mastery, a speculator is first and foremost a student of the Market. It takes humility about our skills, a respect for the market, patience, discipline, methodical practice to become one of the few who find treasure in the market.A speculator may stay out of trading for years, waiting for the perfect setup, the perfect market conditions, a true uptrend, before committing any capital and when does so, will make sure to set up a careful stop loss strategy. A speculator uses no trading cockpit with ten monitors, expensive software, uses no major technical tools, but a price and volume chart and simple figures one can scratch down on a napkin. A speculator is not running his mouth or dispenses wisdom to others offering stock picks, stays out of newsletters, TV programs, listens to no "experts", but remains a humble and devoted student of the wisdom of the market. A speculator spends no time with fundamental analysis as he believes the market and the trend will select the true and worthy winners. A speculator accepts that he can not compete with the resources of Wall Street firms and uses the volume as sign of their moves. When a perfect speculator takes up a position after careful studying, his chances of winning are much higher than most of ours.This simple and thoughtful book can teach more to the right reader than a shelf full of "Get Rich Quick" books (the ones that forget to mention the reality of risks, teach to protect from losses, the ones that cheer you on to buy "good businesses and solid companies"). It should be reread often to remind us, the next crash may be just around the corner, the stock may collapse, but with the disciplined mindset that only years of practice can teach, one should still walk away as a winner.

I love Brad's writing style and his approach to trading. The Perfect Speculator is a great extension of Livermore, Darvas and O'Neil. However, this book is finding and trading stocks using only technical analysis. Livermore and Darvas both tracked fundamental information to a degree, and O'Neil stresses it quite a bit. You will not find any of that here, and I suppose the assumption is that a stock that makes the screen in this book will probably have the fundamentals to back up the performance. It will be reflected in the price already.The simplicity with which he breaks down a complex topic is unique. He makes it look so easy. His trading style is very simple, yet very difficult. It is difficult to sit out of the market and do nothing. It is also difficult to pull the trigger on a trade after a meaningful correction, but it must be done. It is difficult to believe that meaningful returns can be made in the market doing something so simple. It is also difficult to stick to this system, as it will be very boring. But great trading should be boring. There is no reason to read financial news, watch CNBC/Bloomberg, or listen to other people's opinions about the market with this system. It is just you and the market.You will find a complete system in this book, from finding the right stocks, position sizing, exits and entries if you look closely. Even enough about trading psychology to give you a taste. There's not many books that will provide everything.