Tom Williams: The average person has absolutely no idea what drives the financial markets. Even more surprising is the fact that the average trader doesn't understand what drives the markets either! Many traders are quite happy to blindly follow mechanical systems, based on mathematical formulas that have been back-tested over 25 years of data to `prove' the system's predictive capacity. However, most of these traders have absolutely no idea whatsoever as to the underlying cause of the move. These are intelligent people. Many of them will have been trading the financial markets, in one way or another, for many years. A large number of these traders will have invested substantial amounts of capital in the stock market. So, despite financial trading being the largest business in the world, it is also the least understood business in the world. Sudden moves are a mystery, arriving when least expected and appearing to have little logic attached to them. Frequently, the market does the exact opposite of a trader's intuitive judgement. Even those who make their living from trading, particularly the brokers and the pundits, whom you would expect to have a detailed knowledge of the causes and effects in their chosen field, very often know little about how the markets really work. It is said that up to 90% of traders are on the losing side of the stock market. So perhaps many of these traders already have the perfect system to become very successful all they need to do is trade in the opposite direction to what their gut feeling tells them! More sensibly, this book will be able to help you trade intuitively, but in a way a professional does. Below is a brief series of questions as an experiment, see if you can answer any of them: Why do we have bull markets? Why do we have bear markets? Why do markets sometimes trend strongly? Why do the markets sometimes run sideways? How can I profit from all of these movements? If you can answer these questions with confidence you do not need to read this book. If on the other hand you cannot, do not worry because you are not alone, and you will have the answers by the time you have reached the end of the book.
