Last updated: 20 December 2021. Here's our overview of the best forex trading books currently available to buy today.
Searching online for quality forex books is painful and frustrating. Try searching for 'forex trading' on Amazon and you'll find the listings full of duplicate listings for trading logs (blank books) and ebooks thrown together by uncredentialled authors who haven't undergone the scrutiny which would be applied by a traditional publisher.
This page of the best forex trading books is an antidote to this chaos and confusion. We've done all the searching for you, and have arranged the best currency trading books by category, niche or audience, so that you can quickly find what you're looking for. Beyond our 'top' ranking, we've also shortlisted other excellent titles by trading style or learning level, to help you find more books in a similar subcategory.
Click on any title below to see the latest price from Amazon, you'll be shocked at how affordable the most popular titles are. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases which helps to support this site. This does not impact how I compile the list. Happy reading!
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Master the essential day trader skill of making trades based upon price history and trends using these best sellers from the last three decades. Skip the fads and read the trusted bibles instead.
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You DON'T even need a Kindle device to download booksHere's a useful tip that will save you £100+ on forex trading books. Sign-up to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited free trial, which offers access to all titles for free for 30 days.
- There's no obligation to continue with a paid subscription.
- You don't even need a Kindle to enjoy - any device will do.
If you're cost-savvy, you'll already be calculating the savings you could unlock and the knowledge you could gain by downloading 5 books over the next 30 days.
My Top 5 Forex Trading Books for 2022
Click covers to see latest reviews and prices1. The Art of Currency Trading - Brent Donnelly
Financial Expert Rating:
Synopsis:
"While most currency trading and foreign exchange books focus on international finance theory or simplistic chart-based strategies, The Art of Currency Trading is a comprehensive guide that will teach you how to profitably trade currencies in the real world.
Author Brent Donnelly has been a successful interbank FX trader for more than 20 years and in this book, he shares the specific strategies and tactics he has used to profit in the forex marketplace."
Who this investing book is for:
Without doubt, the most consistently well-reviewed book on currency trading available online.
At date of writing, the Art of Currency Trading by Brent Donnelly has amassed 131 reviews averaging 4.5/5 in total. A wholehearted seal of approval from the forex trading community.
Written by a real professional, rather than a day-trading amateur, Brent brings professionalism and academic rigour to this guide aimed at all levels of experience.
Financial Expert Rating:
Synopsis:
"Currency Trading For Dummies is a hands-on, user-friendly guide that explains how the foreign exchange (Forex) market works and how you can become a part of it. Currency trading has many benefits, but it also has fast-changing financial-trading avenues.
Forex markets are always moving. So how do you keep up? With this new edition of Currency Trading For Dummies, you'll get the expert guidance you've come to know and expect from the trusted For Dummies brand—now updated with the latest information on the topic."
Who this investing book is for:
If you've spent time on Financial Expert, you'll recognise that I'm a fan of the '... for Dummies' series of investing guides.
Each is written by a specialist (or in this case - 2) and aims to give a comprehensive oversight of an investing topic rather than dwell for too long on a specific strategy.
This makes them perfect for beginners. Currency Trading for Beginners allows any forex trading newbie to map out the forex trading world - getting to grips with the nature of the global forex market, how to trade, and what types of trading strategies are employed by speculators to make profits.
Financial Expert Rating:
Synopsis:
"We're going to raise traders just like they raise turtles in Singapore.”
So trading guru Richard Dennis reportedly said to his long-time friend William Eckhardt nearly 25 years ago. What started as a bet about whether great traders were born or made became a legendary trading experiment that, until now, has never been told in its entirety.
Way of the Turtle reveals, for the first time, the reasons for the success of the secretive trading system used by the group known as the “Turtles.” Top-earning Turtle Curtis Faith lays bare the entire experiment, explaining how it was possible for Dennis and Eckhardt to recruit 23 ordinary people from all walks of life and train them to be extraordinary traders in just two weeks."
Who this investing book is for:
This is a truly compelling book about "The Turtles", a group of traders who decided to embark upon a highly unusual (yet successful) experiment to train two classes of newbies into elite-level traders.
The experience was a success; the enlarged group allegedly earned over $175 million in their first five years.
The educational nature of the Turtles allows for a natural conversion into a trading book - with the lessons taught to the Turtles forming the basis of the content of the book.
The financial instruments traded by the group were primarily commodity and derivative related, however I've featured this title in this forex trading book list as the lessons are highly transferrable between markets.
Financial Expert Rating:
Synopsis:
"The Visual Investor, Second Edition breaks down technical analysis into terms that are accessible to even individual investors.
Aimed at the typical investor--such as the average CNBC viewer--this book shows investors how to follow the ups and downs of stock prices by visually comparing the charts, without using formulas or having a necessarily advanced understanding of technical analysis math and jargon.
Murphy covers all the fundamentals, from chart types and market indicators to sector analysis and global investing, providing examples and easy-to-read charts so that any reader can become a skilled visual investor."
Who this investing book is for:
In contrast to the above, The Visual Investor is a guide aimed strictly at existing investors who are already familiar with investing terms and most jargon.
This is the second book I feature on this ranking written by John Murphy, who I consider to be one of the god fathers of technical analysis.
The job this book sets itself is to convert you from a reasonably knowledge investor into a knowledgeable day trader - capable of making predictions about short term movements in the stock market.
Compared to my #1 title Technical Analysis, this is a more accessible book which you'll find much easier to complete.
Financial Expert Rating:
Synopsis:
"In this book I will show you the knowledge gained after years of research and study, showing you how - after a thorough observation of charts - I came to understand the price dynamics that are repeated every day and with these, I developed the trading strategy that I have been successfully using for a decade.
The Price in Time presents a clear, powerful and well organized working method that will enable you to know exactly how to act once you enter the market."
Who this investing book is for:
I wanted to feature a very recently published title on this list which gives a decent insight into detailed day trading strategies which have been used in 2020.
The Price in Time by Gabriele Fabris fits the bill perfectly, offering several forex trading strategies which she claims work in todays market.
Download all these forex trading books for free with Kindle Unlimited
You DON'T even need a Kindle device to download booksHere's a useful tip that will save you £100+ on forex trading books. Sign-up to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited free trial, which offers access to all titles for free for 30 days.
- There's no obligation to continue with a paid subscription.
- You don't even need a Kindle to enjoy - any device will do.
If you're cost-savvy, you'll already be calculating the savings you could unlock and the knowledge you could gain by downloading 5 books over the next 30 days.
The Financial Expert™ Best Forex Trading Book Challenge
I challenge you to read one forex trading book per month and see if it revolutionises your investing style!
The Financial Expert™ Best Forex Trading Book Challenge is a distinctive part of Financial-Expert.co.uk.
In a nutshell, this is an interlectual challenge which I've set at what I feel is the right level of difficulty to provide enough of a hurdle to encourage and incentivise you to keep up, but not so great a hurdle that the challenge is likely to fail.
What is the challenge exactly?
I challenge you to read one day trading book each month for the next 12 months!
The idea behind the Financial Expert Best Forex Trading Book Challenge is that the more widely you read, the better forex trader you will become.
It's as simple as that. Books are but a collection of experiences, written down and shared by others. By reading many titles, you can accumulate a pseudo experience, which can help supplement your own.
Of course, nothing can replace real trading experience. And I content that investing courses which don't include a sensible amount of demo-trading or simulations will always be missing a crucial factor.
However, you can still obtain the raw knowledge, ideas and warnings from written material. It's much cheaper to gain these from books than to learn them from your own forex trading mistakes!
Some tips for success
- I found it helpful to stock up on books for the next few months, so that when a new month rolls around, my next book was my bed-side table asking to be opened!
- Pick a variety of styles. This will keep the challenge fresh and increase the diversity of opinion.
- Pick at least one book that you don't think you would enjoy, this book might be the one that surprises you the most!
- If you're time-starved, audio books are absolutely fine!
Where to begin?
The ranking above of my absolute favourite books on currency trading is probably a good place to start. To reiterate what I said at the beginning - you'll find that the online marketplace for forex books is filled with a overwhelming volume of cheap, virtually empty titles written by amateurs, therefore please rely on shortlists like these or other reviews to help you choose titles which will ensure this challenge is a rewarding experience.
Good luck!
What type of forex trading book should you buy?
"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."
When curating the list of forex trading books above, I was careful to include a selection of books from the different sub-categories of forex trading books. These are the main sub-categories:
Introduction to forex trading - A beginners guide which explains the vast nature of the global FX market.
Currency geopolitics - Books which delve deeply into the political factors, powerful people and long term trends which have been driving movements in the forex markets.
Day trading books - Books with a broader focus than just FX, which covers topics such as trader psychology, managing a portfolio and other essential skills.
FX trading ideas - Books which champion a specific trading method or type of analysis, for example books about quantitative and technical analysis.
Which of these titles is right for you?
As a beginner, I would recommend reading widely across all four categories, in the order I have listed them above.
This will lead you to start with the biggest possible picture: 'how does this market actually work?'. Secondly, it's 'what's going on globally?' then 'how can I manage my own business' and finally 'what trading ideas could I utilise.'
Jumping too quickly into specific tradnig strategies without first learning the risk-management skills of day trading, or without truly understanding how the market works is foolhardy, bordering on dangerous.
There's no rush to become a forex trader. The FX market has existed for centuries now, and it will still exist in a few months time after you have read enough to consider yourself prepared to place your first trade.
Why are UK forex trading books taking the world by storm?
Statistics from UK book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan show that the print book market in the UK grew 2.1% in value and 0.3% in volume in 2018. In total, 190.9m books were sold last year, for £1.63bn
London, UK is the world's dominant trading hub for currencies.
In 2019, a record $6.6m trillion in currencies were traded in a single day.
That's an astonishing figure, particularly when contrasted with the average daily volume on the London Stock Exchange which rarely exceeds £10 billion.
Being at the centre of such an enormous market, it's no surprise that many of the world's leading FX brokers and traders live and work in the UK, predominantly in the national's capital.
This has led to a wealth of experience being gained, which eventually translates into a wide variety of forex trading books hitting the shelves once those traders have decided to switch their Bloomberg terminal for a pen and paper!
What is forex trading?
As I explain in my guide to how to trade forex, forex trading is the trading of currency pairs, with a view of generating a positive return from an increase in price of the currency you bought, and a relative decrease in price of the currency you sold.
Forex traders specialise in just one asset class: foreign currencies. This is different to hedge fund traders who may buy or sell currency to hedge an element of currency risk in an arbitrage or other trade. In that case, the trader is buying or selling currency to actually eliminate a risk, rather than purposefully speculating on a price movement. It's worth noting that some hedge fund traders do actually trade forex for speculative purposes also.
The forex market is a 24/7 market, and this creates its own set of unique challenges for would-be-day traders. When does the trading day begin or end? How long should positions be taken for? Without a clear regime and discipline, FX traders can suffer from burnout arising from a 'never-ending' working day.
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