1) A Random Walk Down Wall Street. My current audiobook. Dry as hell in spots, but pretty great most of the time. 2) Day-trading for Dummies. Turns out I didn't know what day-trading is. It's uber-mega-stupid. I'm pretty much reading this one because I figure it's worth knowing how the chartists think, if you can call it thinking. This book and the previous book are kind of like reading about the Atkins diet and raw foodism at the same time. I love that there's a wikipedia article that uses the word "foodism." 3) That twelve million dollar shark. Still loving it but as I decided to pull some money out of the annuities and put it in IRAs I'm being responsible. Let me know how Century hits you. I read Eye of the Needle last year and was absolutely entranced. The people who tell me how to write tell me to read Follett.
Yay random walk! Love that book, wish it was taught in schools. I'm so curious what the day traders book says - does it promise you wealth and riches? If you stay on a finance kick and haven't read them, some suggestions: The Investor's Manifesto - I really understood asset allocation so much better after reading this The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing - My finance bible The Millionaire Next Door - Interesting write up, especially the notes on parenting
As it turns out, "pattern day trading" is defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission as executing four or more trades of the same security in five days. "Day trading" is the practice of closing out all positions and returning to cash at the end of every trading day. "Swing trading" means holding shit for less than a week and yes, there's a "for dummies" book on that, too. Holding shit for more than a week? That's considered "investing." The day trading book doesn't promise wealth or riches at all - it makes the point that in any legitimate study of day trading, 80% of traders are wiped out within a year and those that aren't wiped out earn a median income of $3k per year from their trades. They then say "but it's legit because real estate agents do worse." It's kind of amazing - it goes out of its way to say "day trading isn't gambling" and then uses gambling metaphors for the rest of the book. I've saved your comment. I'll definitely check them out. I put my wife into a Yale unconventional last week and I'm doing a Bogle 3-fund for my meager portion. (and doing all sorts of options hijinks in Thinkorswim but that's fake money so who cares)
Gambling metaphors, and borrowing terminology from gambling, is really common among finance people in general though. I think it's really because probability theorists like to talk about everything in terms of gambling and the finance people worth listening to for the past few generations have been steeped in probability enough to have picked up the habit and spread it.