In 1992, there was an explosion of 'stock fever' in Shanghai. 'From the moment I set foot in Shanghai until my last day there, people from all walks of life wanted to talk to me about the market', Ellen Hertz writes. Her 1998 study sets the stock market and its players in the context of Shanghai society, and it probes the dominant role played by the state, which has yielded a stock market very different from those of the West. A trained anthropologist, she explains the way in which investors and officials construct a 'moral storyline' to make sense of this great structural innovation, identifying a struggle between three groups of actors - the big investors, the little investors, and the state - to control the market.

Efficient market theorists contend that markets are random and thus not predictable. With the publication of Trading Against theCrowd, however, noted author, economist, and professional trader John Summa convincingly shows that investor sentiment can be incorporated into profitable stock and stock market trading systems. In this groundbreaking book, Summa explains how to use popular gauges of crowd psychology, such as put/call ratios, option-implied volatility, short sales, investor surveys, and advisory opinion to trade against, or contrary to, prevailing market sentiment. He also makes compelling arguments against the efficient markets hypothesis with the presentation of his own quantitative weekly bear and bull news-flow intensity indices, which he builds from news scans. This data series, and other popular measures of crowd psychology, are processed through custom indicators that are programmed into profitable trading systems, such as Squeeze Play I & II, Tsunami Sentiment Wave, and the Fourth Estate. Trading Against the Crowd is the first book to provide a comprehensive assessment of investor crowd psychology, offering valuable market timing tools and trading techniques, including: MetaStock and Trade Station system and custom indicator code; comparative statistical studies of CBOE, OEX, and equity-only put/call ratios; straightforward instructions for combining price triggers with sentiment indicators; a practical guide to understanding put/call ratios, short sales, investor surveys, newsletter opinion, and stock market news-flow intensity; how to use LEAP options as trading vehicles to avoid use of stop loss orders; use of put/call ratios for trading the Treasury bond futures market; and test results and evaluation of trading system performance. Many of today’s professional money managers rely on investor sentiment for improved market timing. They know that at extremes of market sentiment, markets tend to be the most predictable.Trading Against the Crowd shows how you can begin to profit from these short- to medium-term sentiment waves generated by the actions of the speculative crowd. Put into practice powerful sentiment data using thoroughly back-tested trading systems, and rise above the herd mentality of the investor crowd, where potentially large profits await.

Crowds move markets and at major market turning points, the crowds are almost always wrong. When crowd sentiment is overwhelmingly positive or overwhelmingly negative ? it's a signal that the trend is exhausted and the market is ready to move powerfully in the opposite direction. Sentiment has long been a tool used by equity, futures, and options traders. In Sentiment in the Forex Market, FXCM analyst Jaime Saettele applies sentiment analysis to the currency market, using both traditional and new sentiment indicators, including: Commitment of Traders reports; time cycles; pivot points; oscillators; and Fibonacci time and price ratios. He also explains how to interpret news coverage of the markets to get a sense of when participants have become overly bullish or bearish. Saettele points out that several famous traders such as George Soros and Robert Prechter made huge profits by identifying shifts in crowd sentiment at major market turning points. Many individual traders lose money in the currency market, Saettele asserts, because they are too short-term oriented and trade impulsively. He believes retail traders would be much more successful if they adopted a longer-term, contrarian approach, utilizing sentiment indicators to position themselves at the beginning points of major trends.

This work offers a practical, concise introduction to behavioral finance--a method that is revolutionizing investment because it places real human beings at the center of the market, and shows how human sentiment and emotion is what really drives securities markets.

LET THE SOUND OF THE CROWD HELP YOU CREATE A SUCCESSFUL TRADING PLAN Praise for Carl Gyllenram and Trading with Crowd Psychology "Investing is first and foremost a psychological process and good market technicians are really psychologists. Mr. Gyllenram understands this and his book offers deep insight into the psychology of the trading range, the area from which big moves-up and down-emerge." --John Bollinger CFA, CMT, President, www.EquityTrader.com "Every trader and investor will recognize themselves and their habits (good and bad) among the characters whose trading decisions are so vividly described in this book, and all should discover ways of improving those trading decisions. A very timely publication." --Michael Smyrk Global Coordinator, International Federation of Technical Analysts "Carl Gyllenram takes a new approach to looking at the workings and importance of crowd psychology in the financial markets ... [he] shows a clear understanding of the subject, providing a thoroughly useful addition to the writings on crowd psychology." --Anne WhitbyFSTA, Vice Chairman, Society of Technical Analysts UK "We are an emotional species and seldom more so than when dealing with money. It is this raw human factor that creates most of the volatility in all financial and commodity markets, not economics ... With this book Carl Gyllenram has made an important contribution to the subject of Behavioral Technical Analysis." --David FullerGlobal Strategist at Stockcube Research Ltd. Writer of the Fullermoney investment letter

This book provides a comprehensive look at the challenges of keeping up with liquidity needs and technology advancements. It is also a sourcebook for understandable, practical solutions on trading and technology.

This account of the sophisticated financial hub that was 17th-century Amsterdam “does a fine job of bringing history to life” (Library Journal). The launch of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 initiated Amsterdam’s transformation from a regional market town into a dominant financial center. The Company introduced easily transferable shares, and within days buyers had begun to trade them. Soon the public was engaging in a variety of complex transactions, including forwards, futures, options, and bear raids, and by 1680 the techniques deployed in the Amsterdam market were as sophisticated as any we practice today. Lodewijk Petram’s award-winning history demystifies financial instruments by linking today’s products to yesterday’s innovations, tying the market’s operation to the behavior of individuals and the workings of the world around them. Traveling back in time, Petram visits the harbor and other places where merchants met to strike deals. He bears witness to the goings-on at a notary’s office and sits in on the consequential proceedings of a courtroom. He describes in detail the main players, investors, shady characters, speculators, and domestic servants and other ordinary folk, who all played a role in the development of the market and its crises. His history clarifies concerns that investors still struggle with today—such as fraud, the value of information, trust and the place of honor, managing diverging expectations, and balancing risk—and does so in a way that is vivid, relatable, and critical to understanding our contemporary world.