Commodity-markets

This book was written in '96 and as such, Easy Language could have been included since it was available then. The system requires high maintenance observation (in 1 minute, 5 minute, 15 minute and 60 minute charts in each future discussed) that would require programming assistance in the background. NB Another reviewer states he has programmed this in ELA & offers his email address.

There are many charts which take up half of the book, but since most of the time the chart being referenced in the text is on another page, it's a hassle to jump back and forth. The writing style could cure insomnia.

As in Larry Williams' daytrading book, this book would have benefitted greatly by inclusion of Performance Reports with Profit Factors, ROI, consecutive losers and the like. In fairness to the author, he provides the results of all trades in a month period for the different time periods (1-minute through 60-minutes) for various futures including the DM. These could have been enhanced with profit targets, it was surprising to see better than potential $1000+ trades allowed to turn into losers.

Once the single system was explained, the various futures could have been presented with 1 time frame Performance Report and the best value, on successive pages.

Unfortunately since Barnes limited himself to 1 month of trades, there is insufficient information on those time frames greater than 1 or 5 minute charts, to determine the validity of the system. One needs a minimum of 30 samples and in many instances there are only 3 trades for the time period presented.

Better editing would have enhanced the value of this book in making it more comprehensible and capable of the system being confirmed as being viable.

Basicly, this is a trend following system. It's designed to hang on to winning trades as long as possible and to dump losing trades quickly. It's similar to a trend breakout system, execept that you control, with two input values, when a valid breakout and a trend begins. It has money management logic built into it. I have created a Tradestation program based on this system which I use to automatically execute trades in Diamonds, Spiders, and E-minis. It's a robust system, works with any security, and is very profitable when the market are trending.

VERY HELPFULL BOOK FOR THE NOVICE. QUICK DELIVERY

I feel this book is a valuable aid for the futures speculator but only when it comes to certain things. The first thing that comes to mind is the last section of the book "World Directory of Commodity markets". In this section a huge # of Commodity exchanges are listed with vital facts such as: commodities traded, contract size, hours of the day the commodity is traded, and how to reach the exchange. Exchanges range from places like Bolsa Brasiliera de Futuros in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil to the Chicago Board of Trade. This section is valuable and comprehensive. The first two sections of the book gave some info on individual commodities such as Sugar and Silver but I did not find this information to be anything exceptional or extremely usefull. I wish the last third of this book was sold by itself for a third of the price.