Michael Covel, The Little Book Of Trading book review

In a nutshell (210 pages), this edition of the Little Book series on finance is a point of view on day trading and short-term trading. Covel denounces a lot of generally acknowledged market and personal finance wisdom and explains his views on the markets, and how to profit from them. Any market.

What I got out of it

Very little. The majority of the book is made up of shout-outs to his peers and mentors that he respects. The reader will be hard-pressed to finish the book and explain any concrete takeaways that are actionable. Th

ere is quite a bit of philosophy in the book, I just don’t know if it’s very positive or useful.

What was difficult

I don’t think Covel is aware of or cares about survivorship bias. He says himself how easy it is to lose everything through the use of his philosophy but always caps off his negative points with some variation of “but eventually you can get rich like this”. This is probably true, just like if you flip a coin often enough you will eventually get heads ten times in a row.

Recommendation

I strongly don’t recommend this book for anyone to read. There is enough blind risk-taking in financial markets as it is. Between greed and fear of missing out (i.e., watching dumb neighbours or friends get rich quickly) that makes this sort of philosophy dangerous for anyone not living under a golden parachute.