The Guts and Glory of Day Trading: True stories of day traders who made (or lost) $1,000,000 [Paperback]

Unfortunately for us readers, this statement (taken from the book) is not meant as a joke. Many of the chapters are about people who have absolutely nothing to do with day trading. It is amazing that the author claims to have selected these people from a much longer list of candidates. Well, maybe it isn't that amazing when you consider that everything in this book is based on phone interviews in which the "traders" presented their own stories. No trading records were reviewed, not a single account was audited.

Let's look at two examples taken from the book:

Example 1: "Barbara Hamilton" (her real name was not given in the book): divorced and received $525,000, which she turned into (the text isn't very specific about this) a little more than one million...by buying and holding internet stocks in 1998 and 1999. Despite being considered a "day trader" by the author, she was still holding them all the way down, and lost most of her money. The chapter ends with the words: "And she was bound and determined to make back her million."

Example 2: Mary Pugh: Bet all her money (!) on one single penny stock, held it on the way up, held it one the way down. Needless to say, that's a little different from what I consider day trading.

Just as an aside: The cover blurb ("Real-life lessons that any trader can profit from.") was written by Jamie Heller, editor-at-large at TheStreet.com, the web site Mark Ingebretsen used to write articles for. I guess that's what friends are for.

A couple of problems with this book:

- the author appears to have no idea regarding the topic of trading;
- it generally has little to do with day trading;
- most subjects in the books are average people who got lucky with apparently no skills (nor common sense);
- the book is written in a style suited to magazines, particularly those for pure entertainment - although unfortunately it is not entertaining at all. The author is unable to direct subjects to the appropriate topics and fails to extract anything substantial in any area; and
- there is very little useful and educational information in it at all (eg statistics / methods / psychology / money management).

There are many other books that are significantly better than this one, particularly Schwager's Market Wizards books.

If you're looking for some possibly fun (for those who haven't read anything in this area), brainless and easy reading - this could be your answer to boredom.

If you want anymore, I'd almost guarantee your disappointment.

So in conclusion - Save ya money