Winner Take All: A Top Commodity Trader Tells It Like It Is

The futures industry is unique, entertaining and, for far too many people, ultimately heartbreaking. What other industry possesses such an entertaining cast of soothsayers, self-proclaimed experts and charlatans? Where else do people become fabulously wealthy simply by acting on their own convictions? And where else does the possibility of failure loom so large and so constant? No other book captures the essence of the futures industry better than Winner Take All. With a penetrating intelligence and a sharp wit, Bill Gallacher dissects many of the industry's leading lights, exposing the frauds, deflating the pompous and poking fun at the seers who believe they can predict the future. Along the way, he demonstrates why most traders lose and, most importantly, what it takes to win. Winner Take All is a book for all traders. For those who believe in easy-money trading systems, it is a sobering antidote. For those who think the markets can't be beaten, it is a work of great inspiration. And for those who are trading profitably, it is an affirmation of the trading success principles. Winner Take All is a wise and profound book. But it is also perhaps the wittiest book on trading ever written. Read Mr. Gallacher on Fibonacci numbers: "Surely the medieval mathematician would be astounded at his impact on the twentieth-century commodity man. His mathematical series was constructed from observations on the incestuous copulation patterns of rabbits. Let's see, you start with a male and a female, then you take the first female offspring and you...well, better not get into it". Mr. Gallacher, a successful private trader, questions all conventional wisdom. He exposes the false premises that underliemuch of technical analysis, and he demonstrates why mechanical trading approaches - while sometimes producing marginal profits - can never provide truly superior results. Although out-of-favor in today's computer age, Mr. Gallacher shows why fundamental analysis, if conducted with insight and imagination, offers the best chance of anticipating and profiting from the big trends which regularly rock the futures markets. Ultimately, Mr. Gallacher asserts, superior trading requires vision - the ability to see what others can't, the ability to envision a major change when everybody else is caught up in the current trend and, most importantly, the courage to act on one's vision. A stellar addition to the literature of trading, Winner Take All will provide traders with inspiration and insights for many years to come.