In person Ashraf is a great speaker, full of humour and enthusiasm. The book is pretty dry. As a previous reviewer wrote "It is always good to know history, but there is absolutely no guarantee that the intermarket relationships present at that time are going to be valid in the future."
As a primer on currency history and relationships between commodities, interest rate differentials, yield curves etc. the book is good. Well written and easy to understand.
But for trading purposes, it may not be particularly useful. Just a starting point for reviewing fundamentals and perhaps an experienced trader can gain some insight into looking for continuing correlations.
Most of the book is on the U.S. dollar, so if you're looking for any real insight into the other major currencies, you'll be a little disappointed. The first 100 pages or so are a very boring play-by-play of the last few decades, trying to relate things like oil crises or interest rate increases to changes in the dollar. It was so bad, I almost stopped reading it, and put it on the shelf with so many other disappointments. There were a few nuggets of information and insight in the middle of the book, but then the last 1/3 of the book drifted back into play-by-play descriptives again, where very little insight or value is given.
Despite trying to relate interest rates, oil, inflation rates, etc. to currency movements, it seemed that though he would give an "event" followed by an effect on the dollar, there was another case in a different scenario where that the same "event" had no effect, or even the opposite effect on the dollar. Sometimes he pointed that out, and sometimes he ignored that in order to make another point. In other words, it's interesting, but there's no cause and effect that's reliable enough to make money from - so why bother.
One final point I want to make. Somebody should take the publisher, Wiley Trading, to task over the charts in their books. I've bought many of their books, and they make no effort to produce charts that are readable. In this book there must be a hundred charts, and 2/3 of them are multi-line charts where all the lines are grey. Useless. I can't tell the line representing Gold from the line representing the dollar, from the line representing interest rates. Useless. Their trading books are a premium price, yet they do a disservice to the author and reader by not including either color, or at least dashed, dotted, solid, thick, thin, dark, light, lines so that we can tell some of the lines apart.
Summary: A few interesting nuggets, but I spent too much money and spent too much time reading, for the little value I got.
A great book. Although there were similar concepts from John Murphy's Intermarket Analysis books, there were some new concepts that I learned and I use in my trading now. Highly reccomend.
Work on intermarket analysis is quite descriptive and not very analytical. The classic Intermarket Analysis: Profiting from Global Market Relationships (Wiley Trading) suffers from that weakness and so does the current book. The current book is not bad, as long as you know what you're getting.
The first part deals with historical events, with a focus on the 1997 to 2007 period. It is always good to know history, but there is absolutely no guarantee that the intermarket relationships present at that time are going to be valid in the future.
The second part deals with current relationships; yield curves, US trade and budget deficits, and commodities. This is quite interesting if you are not at all familiar with the ideas. So this section might serve as a primer. What is really odd is the very strong US focus here. Currency trading always consists of two currencies so it absolutely does not make any sense to focus on the US alone. For this reason I give the book only three stars.
I have written several short reviews on trading books. The best way is to compare the score on the books I've read. Many reviews on amazon.com are just glorious 5 star reviews. I use all five categories; sorry but everything isn't "great". Books rated 5 are very good. Books rated 4 are good solid books well worth reading. Books rated 3 can be bought by some people who read a lot or have very specific needs. Books rated 1 or 2 I would not recommend buying or reading. Naturally all in my humble opinion.
I've read and flipped through a number of currency trading/forex books, both as I was learning the trade and in my continuing education. Most books on the subject seem to be put out to sell with little regard to original content and value-added information. They typically spend half the book going over the very basic of foreign exchange markets and lingo - basically repeating what every other intro-forex book says, and then spend the next half of the book either going over general trading areas - such as trading systems or technical areas of trading. There is little to no value-added information/analysis for the forex trader, unless you are a complete newbie.
This book is different - and more in-line for someone who has read up on forex basics and/or has begun to dabble in forex trading and wants to begin to understand the history of different forex markets (as in their past movements), drivers of said markets, and intermarket connections. Unlike other books on the subject, there is not 200 plus pages of forex definitions and filler - it dives straight into valuable content (chapter 1 is about gold and the dollar - history, linkage, trends). It then goes on to cover oil and its linkage, the dollar's historic performance (and the drivers/causes) vs. other major currencies and other macro and micro drivers of the currency markets. This is not a trading book per se (it does not tell you how to trade various markets) - but a great supplement to the trader's understanding of the markets he or she trades in. If you trade forex but don't understand the concepts in this book, my bet is that you are a losing trader, whether you trade long-term or short.
Overall - the best book out there I have seen about the currency markets, their drivers, correlations/linkage and past performances. After reading you'll have a better understanding of the major currencies' past performances and cyclical behaviors, what drives these cycles, their linkages to one another (as well as to gold and oil), as well as understanding the impact on currency markets of central bank decisions and the trends of other markets (e.g. equities, commodities). Highly recommended for anyone currently or looking to trade forex, or someone who just wants to understand the currency markets, especially in relation to global economics/events.
In short, as a pro FX trader, I find this book not helpful at all. Quoting last paragraph on pg190, "The causality between a falling dollar and rising oil has resurfaced just as it did at the turn of the decade. Besides the oil driven element of a weak dollar, this time the greenback is in the midst of a prolonged down cycle, dogged by the simultaneous existence of credible alternatives for currencies and yield. The lessons yet to be recognized and the opportunities have yet to unfold." Basically you can replace "oil" above with any commodities or currencies you like, and the logic still works. For sure the author failed to forecast the sharp rise of USD after the Lehman/AIG collapse in Aug 2008 when he published this book in Oct 2008. Pathetic! But of course, as FX is a negative sum game, the more the losers longing for explanation and causality, the better for my trading.
If you are looking for the book that would explain you dynamic of the forex market, look no further. This is the one. It is intended to deepen the view and knowledge for the people that already know something about forex and are interested to gain real knowledge about how the market works, and what fuels it. Who is interested in gaining knowledge why some currencies are up or down for the year and what are the key events that pushed them in particular direction, this book explains. My particular favorite part about the book is that it takes paricular currency and takes it through time, so it is not just one time example like; canadian dollar lost 5 % because oil dropped. I read quite few books about forex, and came to the conclusion that people that don't really know how to trade, and do not live of trading real money, are mostly writting books about "how to make money". After you read a couple of them you get the sense who these people are. I would recoment to research the authors and in many cases you would find that they are very busy teaching others how to trade, so the question is "when do you trade ?". That is absolutely not the case wiht this author, A. Laidi. If you start researching forex you are guearanteed to run into him.
Bottom line is; if you want to know how forex market works in real life, you must read this book. A. Laidi is one of the rare people that really understands market,and takes time to explain it. He trully is "The Money Man"
Ashraf Laidi is amazing at reading the financial markets, with an emphasis on currency markets. This book offers an easy to read and understand guide to PROFITING from trading on the forex. Also, it's not encyclopedia-size like a lot of market analysis books, so you won't buy it and be afraid to open it. The correlations between markets that Ashraf identifies in the book are almost unbelievable. You'll see how he finds perfect trends between currencies and oil, gold, the VIX, interest rates, other currencies, etc., which allows for effective decision making in trading. The charts are amazing and easy to read (there are lots of them so you won't just be looking at words), and show direct relationships to forex rates. I actually couldn't believe that he could find almost perfect correlations (you'll see what I mean when you look at the charts), but the man is brilliant, so I'm no longer surprised. I'm very new to currency trading and already making money, skipped the 6-month practice account some recommend. Get in now while the market is hot. I suggest you buy 2 books and read them both. Thanks for making currency trading interesting, understandable, and profitable for me Ashraf! By the way, I have absolutely no financial interest in books that Ashraf sells. I know about him from business network interviews. - All the best - Rob (New York).
Product Details :
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (December 10, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0470226234
ISBN-13: 978-0470226230
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.3 inches
More Details about Currency Trading and Intermarket Analysis: How to Profit from the Shifting Currents in Global Markets 1st edition
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