Volatility Trading, + CD-ROM (Wiley Trading)
by Euan Sinclair
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Book Summary Information
Author: Euan SinclairEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-23
ISBN: 0470181990
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Wiley
Book Reviews of Volatility Trading, + CD-ROM (Wiley Trading)
Book Review: Extremely useful
Summary: 5 Stars
The value of just about any trade book in any profession boils down to a few questions: Is the book clearly written? Is it reasonably current and comprehensive for its intended audience? Is it technically correct and accurate in the details? And is there coverage of material that isn't readily available elsewhere? Volatility Trading wins on all counts and really has no peer as far as I've seen (Taleb's Dynamic Hedging comes closest, maybe, except that is terribly written and edited).
There is plenty of rarely covered material in Volatility Trading. For instance, the author develops money managment principles and trade sizing techniques grounded in utility theory. This is almost unheard of in a book on option trading. Professional gamblers, of course, have known and used Kelly for many years, and so have futures traders -- but it seems to be far less known to the option trading world. Optimal hedging and volatility cones are a few of the other topics rarely covered in books of its kind.
There is a reasonably moderate level of mathematical sophistication expected of the reader, who should be comfortable with basic option pricing theory, elementary statistics and calculus. But never does the author tediously drag readers through technical details or difficult derivations -- this is extremely refreshing. It's a results-oriented book, as one would expect of a book aimed at practitioners. There are some spreadsheet demos on the accompanying CD.
The book also nicely covers some of the uses and abuses of statistics, often with strong analogies to baseball. The author assigns proper importance to sample size: for instance he argues that point estimates of volatility are virtually worthless without some measure of the associated error. There also are a few counterintutive results. For example, the author successfully articulates why the well-known Rule of 16 really ought to be the Rule of 20, reasoning that most traders tend to think in terms expected absolute return -- "typical" price moves -- rather than root-mean-squared returns.
All in all this is a valuable resource; it is an extremely well-written compendium of useful results on volatility estimation/forecasting and trading principles. It is a book written by a quantitative trader for quantitative traders, but quantfin researchers should find the book useful too, given plenty of references to the literature.
Summary of Volatility Trading, + CD-ROM (Wiley Trading)
In Volatility Trading, Sinclair offers you a quantitative model for measuring volatility in order to gain an edge in your everyday option trading endeavors. With an accessible, straightforward approach. He guides traders through the basics of option pricing, volatility measurement, hedging, money management, and trade evaluation. In addition, Sinclair explains the often-overlooked psychological aspects of trading, revealing both how behavioral psychology can create market conditions traders can take advantage of-and how it can lead them astray. Psychological biases, he asserts, are probably the drivers behind most sources of edge available to a volatility trader.Your goal, Sinclair explains, must be clearly defined and easily expressed-if you cannot explain it in one sentence, you probably aren't completely clear about what it is. The same applies to your statistical edge. If you do not know exactly what your edge is, you shouldn't trade. He shows how, in addition to the numerical evaluation of a potential trade, you should be able to identify and evaluate the reason why implied volatility is priced where it is, that is, why an edge exists. This means it is also necessary to be on top of recent news stories, sector trends, and behavioral psychology. Finally, Sinclair underscores why trades need to be sized correctly, which means that each trade is evaluated according to its projected return and risk in the overall context of your goals.
As the author concludes, while we also need to pay attention to seemingly mundane things like having good execution software, a comfortable office, and getting enough sleep, it is knowledge that is the ultimate source of edge. So, all else being equal, the trader with the greater knowledge will be the more successful. This book, and its companion CD-ROM, will provide that knowledge. The CD-ROM includes spreadsheets designed to help you forecast volatility and evaluate trades together with simulation engines.
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