Schiff is an asshat who is trying to leverage a smidge of economic knowledge with publicity skills into a guru status. He deserves the same level of respect as Nouriel Roubini, which is very little. He's a notch below John Paulson but in the same league - he made one good call and everyone started bowing before him.

Why listen to him when there are managers out there who have decades of experience actually making money?

Somebody who was crashproof

lol @ people hating schiff before reading his book

he's been telling people to buy gold the last decade... his losses in 08 were not on his commodity advice which is what 'crashproof' is all about... plus he's launched a chinese mutual fund so you can measurably see how well his economic expertise will fair. he's a wise macroeconomist and if you want to dig up hate articles on him that's fine but i still recommend the book as a great 101 economic textbook.

also, 'naked economics' is a great book, also giving analogies about economic concepts and logistics

What makes him a macroeconomist? Does he have graduate training in econ? Does he publish in academic journals? Does he work as a chief economist somewhere?

Seems to me, he's just a smart guy, who knows some econ (and possibly just fluent in one area of econ, namely the Austrian school). Other than that he's probably good at his job (as a financier, not an economist).

Why is he suddenly a great macroeconomist because he predicted something about gold? Lots of people make correct predictions from time to time, and it's hard to know when they were right, and when they just got lucky.

Schiff certainly was onto something about the general economy, but he thought the US dollar would straight collapse, and commodities would turn into a raging bull market 1970's style. And he placed all his clients money on these two ideas, and lost big.

To gloss over a 70% annual loss with a 'well, everyone lost money that year!' is mindblowing. Simple investors maybe lost 25% with a general buy and hold, this is like the difference between a 25 BI downswing in NL and a 80 BI downswing, with you handwaving with a "well, all poker players go through a big downswing from time to time!". Perspective dude. Schiff is a shill who writes what you want to hear, shouting obvious proclamations (housing is in a bubble and will blow up, no ****?) with no sense of timing. Many others knew the credit bubble was going to blow up, Schiff is not special, he's just telling you want you want to hear, an exciting apocalypse story that makes you feel special for knowing, followed by sexy sales pitch of 'follow my advice and you'll be getting rich while everyone else is getting broke'. These guys win because you don't just want to profit, you also want to profit while the herd is losing money. Appeal to ego. Stop falling for it and look at the facts, his macro economic ideas are generic and he was hardly the only one saying those things, his trading ideas lost a ton of money despite him knowing the crisis was going to happen, and his current advice is in no man's land (he thinks the Euro is a better currency than the US$, I laughed at this 2 years and I laugh even more so now).

Schiff is a hack.

ArturiusX,

I noticed that under John Murphy's book, you said "probably not profitable to read by itself, but an instrumental first step." Before I go any further I should mention that though I have not read this book, I am currently reading Technical Analysis by Charles Kirkpatrick and Heather Dahlquist (2006) which as far as I can tell covers essentially the same material and is more current than Murphy's book.

My question is, why reason did you have behind your statement about the Murphy book? I am mostly curious as to what components you think the book lacks that a person who would like to trade profitably might need. The Murphy book and the one I am reading both seem to give a comprehensive overview of all aspects of technical analysis without delving really deeply into any particular field. Does a trader need more indepth, specialized knowledge of a few indicators or patterns than the book provides? Or is it something else?

Thanks for your input in this thread.

Has anyone read The Investor's Guide To Technical Analysis by Curt Renz? I bought this book several years ago when I first became interested in trading but don't know if it's something I should consider reading. Any thoughts?

I've just started reading Covel's Trend Following book, and was wondering what the general feeling about it was? Which book would be a suitable next read?

I've added many of Art's list to my amazon wish list, but not sure which ones to work through first (or any books not on the list).

(i've got no background in trading / investing, other than putting money into an index fund and reading a couple of investing books such as one up on wall street, and the motley fool guides..)

Thanks,

Market patterns are generalities about what it could mean on the charts. Its a sign of how a group might behave in a particular circumstance. But nothing is for sure, for example, something might look like a H&S pattern but it might just be a coincidence because of fundamental reasons. Its a general ideology that is difficult to apply to individual situations because a) it could just be a coincedence and b) each market behaves differently at different times, some patterns become more meaningless, and c) its difficult to set up risk/rewards on some ideas (like trend channels). But its important to think of group market behavior as phenomenons that can potentially be exploited. Ideas behind momentum for example are sound but there's problems in real world trading when taking advantage of it, mostly to do with fills etc, so you have to learn how to counteract that problem too.

To add to what Art already said this kind of book simply tells you how to read charts and indicators. You still have to understand the mechanics of trading and the psychology of trading which are more important in the big scheme of things. You have to understand how to put a trading plan and strategy together and then execute it flawlessly both mechanically and psychologically with risk/reward parmeters within your threshold.

According to the Austrian school said prediction would not make him a great economist since predictions fall into the realm of entrepreneurship. It would make him a good entrepreneur.

He does not hold a graduate degree in econ, I think his only academic degree is one in Finanace&Accounting from U.C. Berkeley

Can anyone recommend a book for someone who is looking to learn the theory behind Keynesian economics? Obviously I can read Keynes' work itself but perhaps there are other choices out there that explain his theories with more clarity?

Are you sure Austrians don't also think econ should be about prediction and explanation? Put differently, prediction could fall into the realm of economics, entrepreneurship, and a whole host of other things.

Besides, what's your argument? That some people who like Austrian econ consider him an economist? My guess is, if you could talk to a lot of real Austrian economists (like Pete Boettke, Israel Kirsner, etc.), they'd tell you he's a smart guy, but he's not an economist.

I personally don't think you can call someone an economist, unless they have graduate training in the discipline. Even then, if you don't work as an economist, you're not exactly an economist. It'd be like calling someone a physicist because they are interested in certain aspects of the discipline, despite the fact that they have a bachelors degree in biology.

And, for whatever it's worth, I truly respect the Austrian school. I think they have many good insights, and have added to our understanding of economics. I'm just saying, the guy is not an economist. He maybe smart, he may have been right, he's just not an economist.

Pretty much any introductory or intermediate macroeconomic textbook will be Keynesian. The one I used was Mankiw's "Intermediate Macro" text. Oliver Blanchard also has a popular textbook (probably with a similar title).

YoungEcon, I actually agree with you. I was writing that because he's probably not concidered an economist by Austrians and possibly doesn't concider himself one either so the criticism of "what makes this guy think he's an economist" wouldn't even apply.

And to contribute to this thread instead of derailing it, the most recent "Austrian" book I've read was "Time and Money - The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure" by Roger Garrison who's an econ prof at Auburn

Basically he builds an Austrian macro level model based on Mises/Hayek and related works and compresses it nicely into a couple of graphics. He compares the Austrian macro model to Keynes and Monetarism and I think it's pretty valuable for anyone with training in mainstream economics who's interested in macro but doesn't know much about the Austrian school.

It's only 250ish pages long and fairly easy to understand. A pretty good summary of what this model is build on (and sample chapters etc) can be found at his Auburn page and downloaded as a PPT:
Roger Garrison - Time and Money
Keynes vs Hayek PPT
Hayek only

There's also a Keynes only PPT which is pretty good if you need to prepare for some econ test, at least I gave it to my sister as last minute prep and she said it was very usefull

Thanks man, I'll check it out.

For some input.. I would say one of the best things to read is Buffet's yearly newsletter from Berkshire. Buffet really is correct when he says "be selling when everyone is buying, and when blood is running in the streets, you should be buying" Of course, thats not exactly how he said it, but you get the drift.

Common sense and being able to look at overall conditions are a *huge* deal. Sometimes you just "get a feel" for whats going to happen because you are paying attention. You develop insight. Also, sometimes you just don't know. Reading technical analyses and expert opinions, trading based on fundamentals... sometimes it just doesn't work, as we all know.

And, good general advice about investing : "no one knows nothing". Don't trust anyones opinion. The more positive someone is about something, the less you should trust them. I tend to trust people's opinions who say "well, I'm not sure, but I would say we're more likely to move in this direction". Or, "there is more upside potential than downside in taking this position".

I say all this general crap because I work in this type of environment. I've seen guys who know all the technical stuff, all the fundamentals, and they get killed. Then I see other guys who mix in their "feel" for things, and they are very successful. I've asked them "Hey man, how did you know that?" and they will say "I just felt it was ready for a run".

ok, I'll shut up now.

-Wil

wil, I'm guessing you're talking mainly about trading, right?

Yes. Trading, sorry. In general you should read everything you get your hands on, but you should always be taking this information and assessing it yourself, not taking it as gospel. Every situation is different, and you have to put logic and reason into your decisions.

My point is just don't go by "what the book says'. Just like in poker. lol.

-Wil

Wil: appeal to authority fallacy is never greater in anything than trading. simple.

This may sound stupid, and I don't consider myself a stupid guy, but I have no idea what that means. Explain?

I think he is agreeing to what you were saying to YoungEcon.

I'm confused too. What are we talking about now?

Ok. thanks. heh.

-Wil

has anyone encountered the book Maximum Adverse Excursion by John Sweeney yet?

http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Advers...6179632&sr=8-1

if so let me know whats your opinion about it and if its worth buying, furthermore I`d like to know if the concept of MAE is actually a useful tool in trading or just a dispensable statistical measurement.

Dark Side of Valuation by Aswath is the nuts.