Microsoft Excel for Stock and Option Traders: Build Your Own Analytical Tools for Higher Returns

"Microsoft Excel for Stock and Option Traders" is the first major book of its kind. It guides you step by step in building your own analytical tools for generating more profitable returns. Chapter 1 presents the value of utilizing this information. The chapter has 10 sub chapters that discuss how data mining can identify great trading opportunities. It provides examples of how using data on stocks and ETFs can allow you to identify unique changes that can be developed into proper trading strategies. This section demonstrates how using data entered into Microsoft Excel can be used in practical ways to benefit your trading. This is an excellent presentation of this material and has practical uses. Chapter 2 shows how to obtain quality data on stocks and ETFs and getting it into Excel for analysis. To my knowledge this Chapter is the first clear presentation of how to use these powerful tools to make our own data bases for analysis. This chapter has 12 sub chapters that cover everything you need to know for setting up usable data bases. Prior to this book this type of analysis was beyond the average trader. The major accomplishment of this book is that it provides a clear and step by step methodology for obtaining quality data, getting it into Excel and manipulating it to ask pertinent questions relative to your trading. I am not normally able to utilize this type of data analysis, but this book has allowed me to enter into this realm of sophisticated data analysis. It guided me on how to do it and what important questions can be asked. The final Chapter evaluates time frames, building and testing models and sampling results. For the serious trader this book is the best source for really taking your trading abilities to the next level. I have been a big fan of Augen's books. This new addition to his work has been long overdue and is a valuable trading resource.

Try to do a search for "Excel" and "stocks". You will usually get a few books returned. They will mostly cover equity or financial analysis. You will simply not get many, if any at all, books on Excel and Options. There are many books on options with sophisticated mathematical treatments. But academic life is different from trading life. With the wonders that Information Technology (IT) has brought to trading, a lot can be done. But little is made public.This unique book opens up an entire new world of possibilities to an audience that is unaware of them. It unlocks a hidden potential. With a concise but beautifully clear language, Jeff Augen explores realms unknown to many. There are so many hidden gems and insights in this book that professional (and even occasional) option traders can hardly afford to ignore them.Many traders know little about IT and have to live with the tools provided to them. Or, even worse, they think that they know enough about IT when in reality they don't. Many people don't have the stamina to read beyond the first pages of many books. This book is there to show that it is possible to be insightful but clear, to be comprehensive but concise, to dare to unlock the hidden potential but to appear simplistic. Obvious, but it is not.This is a great work of an expert that is willing to share his unique combination of expertise in Trading and in Information Technology. Very few really have this background. And even fewer are willing to share it. In fact, this book is a great opportunity.

Having benefited significantly from his earlier two books ( The Volatility Edge in Options Trading: New Technical Strategies for Investing in Unstable Markets  and  Trading Options at Expiration: Strategies and Models for Winning the Endgame ), I was very eager to read this book - despite Augen's previous book  Trading Realities: The Truth, the Lies, and the Hype In-Between  was eminently forgettable. This one is mostly disappointing "book". The issue is not that there are no good ideas here - but the "book" at best has material sufficient for a decent paper in a trading journal or a week's worth of blog posts. Moreover, an entire chapter of a 3-chapter books is almost dedicated to an inane discussion on difference between database and spreadsheet and how to shift cells in Excel and date formats etc. (Reminded me of the "Hello World" program I wrote when I was learning Java). Such discussion in an already short book is quite underwhelming considering the grandiose title of the book.However, the book is not without merit - the idea of incorporating Excel to understand day-of-the-week distortions in a security may have some utility in trading weekly options (especially combining some of the ideas from his "Expiration..." book). The discussion on possible way to predict a correction using VIX/true ratio is also interesting. Discussion on using Excel for trendlines is OK (but most readers who are interested in their own analytics probably use software that provides far more trending options). However, Augen does provide a good framework for structuring a spreadsheet to make it easier for complex analyses. If the book was advertised in that context alone, it would have been on target. Instead, the publisher/editor/author decided to market the book as "...covers a variety of approaches for systematically improving your trades by exploiting Excel's most powerful new features..". On that front, a classic example of over-promise and under-deliver.Overall, despite some interesting thoughts, the superficial discussion on Excel and very sparse good ideas makes this a mostly below-average book..quite a far cry from his first two books. In fact Augen could have had a classic, rivaling his first book, had he combined this book with two others - Trading...expiration and  Day Trading Options: Profiting from Price Distortions in Very Brief Time Frames  (please my reviews for these two). This one is worth a quick read to perhaps nudge some creative thinking on your own...but dont expect much help from this book directly. Not a must-have.

This is an in-depth study - and it was way over my head. I should read and understand it but doing it involves way more time and work in Excel than I am willing to give it. This is a book for "traders" not for investors. If you are a day trader, then you would benefit from this book. Mine is for sale if you want it.

I bought the book with high hopes of being able to perform analysis. I am reasonably proficient at Excel. What I do not know is how to use statistical analysis for analysing stock trades. I was disappointed. After skimming though the book, I found that it was just too concise for the subject. Serious statistical analysis of stock trades would require much more indepth workflows, descriptions and examples. The book offers little value there. The price does not match the value.