New Amazon Review of "Stock Trading Riches"

Today, a reader posted a nice, detailed 5-star review of "Stock Trading Riches" on Amazon.com:

"I am a short term trader by heart but needed a system to manage my retirement accounts and this one certainly works very well.

I used the excel sheet provided in the book to test dozens of random stocks over the past 6 years and about 80% beat Buy and Hold over the same time period.

The results were good but I needed more proof since the market conditions of the last 6 years did not capture every possible market scenerio.

With the excel sheet , I simply created every possible market movement I could think of and still my results were very good.

This is the kind of system someone with very little investment or trading experience can pick-up and implement right away,that's how simple it is. I found that it will work for retirement accounts and trading accounts.

Many times ,especially those of us who are traders, dismiss the simple for being ineffective but the truth is the more complex the trading system the more likely it is to fail over time.

And oh yeah-what I love most about this book-he gets right to the point and shows you how the system works. No beating around the bush for a 100 pages."

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Gangnam Style - You Just Have To Watch This

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Praveen in a Video Discussion on The Future of Money: Bitcoin, Economics, The Gold Standard, And Work

Because of my book, some popular bloggers asked me to join an interview/panel discussion on money and finance. (I came on a few minutes late).

Here is the interview on you tube:

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Follow Up to "Why I Just Bought Facebook (FB) Stock"

I consider my IPO purchase of Facebook (FB) to be  a contrarian move because the stock behaved differently than the conventional wisdom at the time. 

 I wasn't initially planning to buy but, from what I had read and from talking to other people in high technology, everyone expected Facebook to soar at the opening.  I know someone, a senior executive at a high-tech company, who placed a limit order at the open to not buy over 55. So, he expected it to pop.

 When I saw that it didn't soar like everyone predicted, I decided to buy it.  

 I thought it would increase over the next few days/weeks.  As we now know, it didn't.  Instead, it is down about 50%.  Even though I didn't expect this, I am ok with it.

Because my system diversifies, and each individual position is re-balanced yearly, I feel safe sometimes taking a risk on stock. 

I will rebalance my Facebook position at the end of the year. Even with Facebook's performance, my portfolio is up 11% for the year.

I don't use any stop losses with the Stock Trading Riches system - other than replace a position if I feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with the company. In my book, I list an optional stop loss rule in the section about customizing my system. It calls for replacing a stock if it declines 50% (or X% - it can be customized) from the initial buy. I state in the section that I don't use this rule myself, and it would have prevented the performance in the AMZN stock example in my book.

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Why I Just Bought Facebook (FB) Stock

I just bought Facebook (FB) to be contrarian because of the way the IPO "fizzled".

I first started to think about buying Facebook because, for the last several weeks, I saw lots of news stories warning against buying Facebook when it went public.

Everywhere I looked, reports and columnists warned how the stock is over-hyped, the insiders want to cash out, people are foaming at the mouth to buy it, etc.  The stock would run away at the open and, if you were foolish enough to try and buy it during the first day, you would end up getting burned.

I've learned to be skeptical of all these financial stories.

Then, this afternoon, I saw that Facebook did go public this morning at $38.  The stock only opened at $42 (so much for the "frenzied pop"), touched $45, and now is around $40.

Also, the last couple of weeks have been bad for stocks, and it looks like Facebook failed to rally the over all market.

At this point, I don't feel like Facebook is overpriced.  I think that, over the next several months, it has a good chance to go up because, as the uncertainty with Greece works itself out, and the markets put it behind and start to recover, individual investors and funds will start to revisit Facebook.

On the other hand, I don't see a lot of room on the downside for Facebook.  Google Plus doesn't appear likely to do to Facebook what Facebook did to My Space - at least not yet.

As always, I bought Facebook as a long term investment, and plan to manage the position and harvest it for cash by trading around a core position according to my Stock Trading Riches system.

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Naked I Trade, Naked I Live

No - I don't literally trade naked or live out my day running around the house naked!

I had a zen shift after getting zen slapped - I can't grasp, hold onto concepts anymore - I'm free.  That's what has made me a successful stock trader.  I no longer hide behind technical analysis or look for patterns, or expect the market to do what i think it should - I m no longer attached to the outcome.

 I just use my Stock Trading Riches system.

All I care about is the stock fluctuates - I then play the stock.  I follow it in and out - reset constantly.

That is how the rest of my life is now  - old patterns are shifting, changing.

I want to be reborn every time I trade or write.

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CFD Trading – What is it and Why is it Popular?

A CFD or Contract for Difference is an agreement between a “buyer” and a “seller”, where the seller agrees to pay the buyer the difference between the current price of a financial asset, and its price at a pre agreed point in the future. The CFD is a relatively new financial derivative that has many similarities to spread betting and many CFD Brokers offer both services. Spread betting still remains the most popular derivative instrument in the UK due to the tax free status is enjoys. When you agree to a Contract for Difference, you are required to pay the broker in question a fee and this will be taken in the form of a commission and/or spread.


Why is it popular?

There are a number of reasons why people choose to trade CFDs rather than purchasing ownership of financial assets:

Shorting. When you purchase a company share or any other financial asset, you are essentially betting on its price increasing in value. The problem is, if you think the price is going to go down, you cannot put money on this outcome happening. This is where CFDs come in. A Contract for Difference broker will allow you to take either side of the contract which allows you to bet on its value going up or down.

Leverage. When you trade CFDs you are likely to be doing so with leverage (margin). This means you can take out positions that are worth considerably more than the value of your bet which allows you to receive a much higher return if the market moves in your favour. Conversely, if your position turns out to be unsuccessful, you will end up losing at a higher factor.

Market choice. Large CFD providers tend to offer a vast selection of financial markets. You can take out positions on a whole host of company stock, commodities, energy prices, interest rates and much more.


Where can I trade CFDs?

There are an ever growing number of CFD brokers on the market and it is important to choose one that is competitive with its fees and financially secure. As we saw with the recent downfall of World Spreads, you do not want to trade with a company where you can end up losing your money. IG Markets is the largest derivatives provider and probably the best service provider too. If you are looking to sign up with a company, they might be worth a look.


This article was written by Greg Bassett, editor of the online trading guide www.blueIndex.co.uk. Check the site out today for a comparison of the top CFD brokers on the market.

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