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Leveraged Trading: A Professional Approach to Trading Fx, Stocks on Margin, Cfds, Spread Bets and Futures for All Traders
With the right broker, and just a few hundred dollars or pounds, anyone can become a leveraged trader. The products and tools needed are accessible to all: FX, a margin account, CFDs, spread-bets and futures. But this level playing field comes with great risks. Trading with leverage is inherently dangerous. With leverage, losses and costs - the two great killers for traders - are magnified. This does not mean leverage must be avoided altogether, but it does mean that it needs to be used safely. In Leveraged Trading, Robert Carver shows you how to do exactly that, by using a trading system. A trading system can be employed to tackle those twin dangers of serious losses and high costs. The trading systems introduced in this book are simple and carefully designed to use the correct amount of leverage and trade at a suitable frequency. Rob shows how to trade a simple Starter System on its own, on a single instrument and with a single rule for opening positions. He then moves on to show how the Starter System can be adapted, as you gain experience and confidence. The system can be diversified into multiple instruments and new trading rules can be added. For those who wish to go further still, advice on making more complex improvements is included: how to develop your own trading systems, and how to combine a system with your own human judgement, an approach Robert has nicknamed Semi-Automatic Trading. For those trading with leverage, looking for a way to take a controlled approach and manage risk, a properly designed trading system is the answer. Pick up Leveraged Trading and learn how.
- GenresFinance
346 pages, Hardcover
Published October 29, 2019
60 people are currently reading
293 people want to read
About the author
Robert Carver
4 books85 followersRobert Carver is an independent systematic futures trader and investor, writer, and research consultant. He is the author of “Systematic Trading: A unique new method for designing trading and investing systems" (Harriman House, 2015), and "Smart Portfolios: A practical guide to building and maintaining intelligent investment portfolios" (Harriman House, September 2017).
Until 2013 Robert worked for AHL, a large systematic hedge fund, and part of the Man Group. He was responsible for the creation of AHL's fundamental global macro strategy, and then managed the funds multi billion dollar fixed income portfolio. Prior to that Robert worked as a research manager for CEPR, an economics think tank, and traded exotic derivatives for Barclays investment bank. He spent his early career in the Middle East.
Robert has a Bachelors degree in Economics from the University of Manchester, and a Masters degree, also in Economics, from Birkbeck College, University of London.
Robert trades and invests with his own money using the methods you can find in his books.
Until 2013 Robert worked for AHL, a large systematic hedge fund, and part of the Man Group. He was responsible for the creation of AHL's fundamental global macro strategy, and then managed the funds multi billion dollar fixed income portfolio. Prior to that Robert worked as a research manager for CEPR, an economics think tank, and traded exotic derivatives for Barclays investment bank. He spent his early career in the Middle East.
Robert has a Bachelors degree in Economics from the University of Manchester, and a Masters degree, also in Economics, from Birkbeck College, University of London.
Robert trades and invests with his own money using the methods you can find in his books.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 1, 2022
This book is more aimed at beginners traders than advanced ones, but still has some useful information.
The author starts the book by defining many type of leveraged assets, for beginners to understand also what is leverage and margin trading.
Uses some interesting concepts like a fraction of sharpe ratio for judging costs. But I think it focus too much on sharpe ratio, even though he correctly says that there is no normal distribution on price movements, which is why abnormal returns/drawdowns occurs more often than expected.
The author spends a good chunk of the book with boring tables and calculations of positions, could be more direct and with less calculations.
When using multiple trading rules, the author prefers to use a weighted average of the rules to know what position should be opened. I think this approach is too simplistic, as each strategy have it's own characteristics, like position sizing, trading frequency, etc, and can't be just an average.
There is an odd advice to estimate your "forecast" of the strength of the signal and adjust your position accordingly, up to 2x your normal position, seems an unusual metric that I certainly would like to backtest it properly.
I had high hopes for this book, but I think I should have bought the other books by the author, not this simple one.
Estimated reading time: 6h
The author starts the book by defining many type of leveraged assets, for beginners to understand also what is leverage and margin trading.
Uses some interesting concepts like a fraction of sharpe ratio for judging costs. But I think it focus too much on sharpe ratio, even though he correctly says that there is no normal distribution on price movements, which is why abnormal returns/drawdowns occurs more often than expected.
The author spends a good chunk of the book with boring tables and calculations of positions, could be more direct and with less calculations.
When using multiple trading rules, the author prefers to use a weighted average of the rules to know what position should be opened. I think this approach is too simplistic, as each strategy have it's own characteristics, like position sizing, trading frequency, etc, and can't be just an average.
There is an odd advice to estimate your "forecast" of the strength of the signal and adjust your position accordingly, up to 2x your normal position, seems an unusual metric that I certainly would like to backtest it properly.
I had high hopes for this book, but I think I should have bought the other books by the author, not this simple one.
Estimated reading time: 6h
January 3, 2022
Wonderful, life changing book
I design trading systems for a living and trade my own capital with some small success and many failures along the way. Mr Carver has removed the wool from my eyes. To my great shame I’ve been doing it completely, absolutely, irredeemably wrong for 14 years. Let me explain. The retail trading world almost universally uses an approximation for estimating risk, usually defined as the amount you lose if your trade hits a stop loss, multiplied by some fraction of your account (usually .5-2%) Mr Carver proves beyond any doubt that this is an approximation which does not work. He also explains why nearly all trading systems are curve fitted to some extent, and goes a long way to try and avoid basic sins. I’m grateful that Rob Carver exists, this knowledge, which is commonplace in the professional finance world, was completely unavailable to retail traders just a few years ago. Without this stuff (proper risk management and position sizing framework) you are almost certain to blow up your account. Bravo!
I design trading systems for a living and trade my own capital with some small success and many failures along the way. Mr Carver has removed the wool from my eyes. To my great shame I’ve been doing it completely, absolutely, irredeemably wrong for 14 years. Let me explain. The retail trading world almost universally uses an approximation for estimating risk, usually defined as the amount you lose if your trade hits a stop loss, multiplied by some fraction of your account (usually .5-2%) Mr Carver proves beyond any doubt that this is an approximation which does not work. He also explains why nearly all trading systems are curve fitted to some extent, and goes a long way to try and avoid basic sins. I’m grateful that Rob Carver exists, this knowledge, which is commonplace in the professional finance world, was completely unavailable to retail traders just a few years ago. Without this stuff (proper risk management and position sizing framework) you are almost certain to blow up your account. Bravo!
November 16, 2025
Reading this book feels like biting a ripe apple, and not getting any tastes. A feeling of emptiness pervades the pages.
Useless junk!
Useless junk!
November 14, 2020
16-64 sma cross? It can’t be real
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews