Trading Books: Beating the Financial Futures Market: Combining Small Biases Into Powerful Money Making Strategies

Author: Art Collins
Publisher: Wiley
Year: 2006

Topics Covered: 

  • The Problem with Non-Mechanical Trading
  • Why Doesn’t Spontaneous Trading Work? Why Is It So Hard for Someone to Profit by Merely Using His Head?
  • Identifying Simple Biases
  • Close versus Closing Averages
  • The Four Rules of Prudent Optimization
  • Two-Day versus Five-Day Averages
  • Fifty-Day Order of Extreme Highest/Lowest Closes
  • Combining the First Three Basic Indicators
  • Cuing Off Relative Range Sizes 
  • Fifteen-Day High/Low Averages
  • Combining All Five Indicators 
  • Other Combinations of the Five Basic Indicators
  • Two More Open-to-Close Biases
  • Cups and Caps
  • Three-Day 20 Percent Support-Resistance Indicator
  • The Eight Indicator System
  •  Entering on Stops and Limits
  • Some General Observations about Stops
  • The Pros and Cons of Price Targets
  • Other Applications of the Two High/Low Exit Technique
  • On Further Optimization, Market Drift, and Virgin Data
  • Targeting Sectors
  • Index Biases Part One—Days of the Week
  • Index Biases Part Two—Days of the Month
  • Index Biases Part Three—Month of the Year Indicator
  • Index Biases Part Four—Combining Day of Week, Monthly, and Previous Eight Indicators
  • The Dow-Spoo Spread
  • Intraday Day Trading Part One: The Most Significant Price in Your Arsenal
  • Intraday Part Two—The Switch 
  • Intraday Part Three—An Effective Index Switch
  • Intraday Part Four—A Financial Switch
  • Intraday Part Five—Four Combined Entry Signals in the Indexes
  • What to Do after Five Closes in the Same Direction
  • Some Additional Fade Ideas
  • Another Look at N Day and an Alternative Stop Approach
  • Taking On the Axioms Part One—The RSI Indicator
  • Taking On the Axioms Part Two—The Reversal Day Indicator
  • Potpourri—Systems as I Discover and/or Rediscover Them—In No Particular Order
  • The Six Signal Indicator
  • Combining the Non–Either-Or Indicators
  • Six Signals Plus Non–Either-Or—Putting It All Together

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Trading book review_beating the financial futures market_art collins

Trading Book Review of ‘Beating the Financial Futures Market: Combining Small Biases Into Powerful Money Making Strategies’ by Art Collins:

This book was a huge influence on my own approach to systematic trading. My copy is covered in handwritten notes, learnings and realizations from my multiple readings of the book. What I loved is how Art Collins identifies and analyzes simple (but not obvious) edges in many different markets and demonstrates how to build them into complete systems. This trading book is a must-read for any systematic trader looking for ideas and inspiration for new rules and edges in the market regardless of which markets you trade. I have read it cover to cover at least 5 times! If you have other trading books that you can recommend then please leave me a comment below and I will make a review about it!

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Adrian Reid Founder and CEO
Adrian is a full-time private trader based in Australia and also the Founder and Trading Coach at Enlightened Stock Trading, which focuses on educating and supporting traders on their journey to profitable systems trading. Following his successful adoption of systematic trading which generated him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year using just 30 minutes a day to manage his system trading workflow, Adrian made the easy decision to leave his professional work in the corporate world in 2012. Adrian trades long/short across US, Australian and international stock markets and the cryptocurrency markets. His trading systems are now fully automated and have consistently outperformed international share markets with dramatically reduced risk over the past 20+ years. Adrian focuses on building portfolios of profitable, stable and robust long term trading systems to beat market returns with high risk adjusted returns. Adrian teaches traders from all over the world how to get profitable, confident and consistent by trading systematically and backtesting their own trading systems. He helps profitable traders grow and smooth returns by implementing a portfolio of trading systems to make money from different markets and market conditions.