Free materials from Intensibio for self-study!
Welcome to the Intensibio Summer Camp, offering top opportunities for self-studying.
Here you will find:
Books to read
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
by Edwin LefèvreThough written a century ago, this edition is considered one of the most entertaining and highly recommended books on trading and investment. Its take on crowd psychology and market timing are still of current interest. This book has more to teach each beginning trader about markets and people than years of experience.
The Intelligent Investor
by Benjamin GrahamBenjamin Graham, the author of the book, is considered one of the most significant investment advisors of the twentieth century. He presents his philosophy of “value investing” that shields investors from typical strategic mistakes. The author also teaches traders to develop long-term strategies. The approach described in the book has been proven over the years of market development.
Market Wizards
by Jack SchwagerThe book comprises interviews of the world’s top traders sharing their secrets of phenomenal success. Dozens of experts across most financial markets share formulas of success with constants such as solid methodology, proper psychological attitude, and strategic planning. The book’s primary value is that the author distils the answers of experts into a set of guiding principles for novice traders to repeat the unprecedented success of masters.
The Disciplined Trader
by Mark DouglasThis is one of the first books addressing the fundamental problem of the importance of successful and strategic thinking. “The Disciplined Trader” is now considered an industry classic. The author explores the causes of why some market players can not keep their success. The book also provides a practical step-by-step guide to changing the limiting mindset. The book leads to understanding that these thoughts can cause failures in trading.
Trader Vic II: Principles of Professional Speculation
by Victor SperandeoVictor Sperandeo is considered one of the most prominent financial masters. Every trader and investor will benefit from reading his book comprising remarkable methods, strategies, and formulas. The book offers a different perspective on the trading analysis and focuses not on industry or market-specific metrics but on the general trends in the economy. The expert proves that such an approach enables traders to predict significant market changes and specific sectors that will thrive.
The Big Short
by Michael LewisThis book is one of the best works of the leading financial journalist Michael Lewis. The author tells the story of the biggest housing bubble in history. The book’s main players bet against the subprime mortgage market and managed to profit from the 2007-2008 crisis. The leading trading experts recommend the book as a guide to identifying some tell-tale signs of exuberant greed and the scenario that generally follows. Michael Lewis has an excellent ability to explain complex financial markets to people without understanding the financial industry.
Technical Analysis Of The Financial Markets
by John J. MurphyThe book is regarded as the bible of traders. It is written by a former director of technical analysis at Merrill Lynch. It covers almost all aspects of trading, from basic terminology and concepts to complex indicators. The book provides over 400 charts to teach technical analysis. It was cited in various Federal Reserve research papers and used in training by the Market Technicians Association. This revised edition is extended to cover all asset classes turning it into a valuable resource for experts working across various markets.
The vocabulary of a beginning trader
- Angel investor (a private investor, seed investor, or angel funder) is a high-net-worth person providing financial backing for small startups or entrepreneurs, typically in exchange for ownership equity in the company.
- Arbitration is a mechanism for resolving conflict issues between brokers and investors or between traders.
- Asset is a resource owned or controlled by someone (individual, organisation, or country) expecting that it will provide benefit in the future.
- Balance sheet is a financial statement that summarises the assets, liabilities, and equity of shareholders of the company at a certain point in time.
- Basket trade is an approach of investment companies and major institutional traders suggesting buying or selling security simultaneously.
- Bear market is a market condition in which securities prices fall 20% or more from current highs. It features overall pessimism and negative sentiment of investors.
- Broker is an individual or a company that operates as an intermediary between an investor and a security exchange.
- Bull market is a market condition in which the price of an asset or security has risen or is expected to rise.
- Call option is a financial derivative that enables an owner to buy a particular security at a specified price within a specified timeframe.
- Capital structure is a specific combination of debt and equity used by companies for funding their operations in the market and growth.
- Commodity is a commerce good that has a certain value and is interchangeable with other goods of the same kind.
- Day Trading is a strategy of actively selling and buying securities, trying to earn on short-term changes in the price.
- Derivative is a type of contract whose price depends on the underlying assets.
- Diversification is a risk-management strategy suggesting a wide variety of investments in a trader’s portfolio.
- EPS, or Earnings Per Share, is a metric estimation of a company’s corporate value. It indicates how much money the company makes for each share of its stock.
- ETF or Exchange Traded Fund is a type of pooled investment security that operates like a mutual fund.
- Equity is the sum shareholders will get if all assets are liquidated and the entire company debt is paid off.
- Fiat money is a currency issued by a government. It is not backed with any physical commodity such as precious metals but rather by the government that issued it.
- Financial market is a broad term meaning a place where different assets are traded. It includes the stock, bond, forex, and derivatives markets.
- Futures is a derivative financial contract obligating the parties to trade an asset at a predetermined price or date.
- Gap is a period in a security’s chart where its price rises or falls from the previous day’s close, with no trading occurring. Gaps commonly occur when news causes market fundamentals to change during hours when markets are typically closed, for instance, an earnings call after-hours.
- Grey list is the list of securities that are ineligible for trade by an investment bank’s risk arbitrage division. The securities are not necessarily risky, but nonetheless restricted.
- Gun jumping is a strategy of financial experts to use for their decisions the information that is not officially announced yet.
- Hedge fund is a limited partnership of several companies or investors whose money is managed by professional managers who apply different strategies to earn above-average investment returns.
- High close is a trading strategy that suggests small trades at a high price during the final minutes before close to create an impression that the stock performed well.
- High-low index is an index that compares stocks reaching their 52-week highs with stocks that are hitting their 52-week lows.
- Investor is an individual or an organisation (such as a firm or mutual fund) who commits capital with the expectation of receiving financial returns and profit.
- Initial public offering or IPO is a process of offering shares of a private corporation to the public in a new stock issuance for the first time.
- Inverse ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) constructed by using various derivatives to profit from a decline in the value of an underlying benchmark.
- January Effect is a perceived seasonal increase in stock prices during the year’s first month.
- J-Curve is an economic theory suggesting that under certain conditions, a country’s trade deficit will worsen after its currency depreciation.
- Journal is a detailed record of all the financial transactions of a business that are used for the future reconciliation of accounts and the transfer of information to other official accounting records, such as the general ledger.
- Key rate duration is a measure of a security’s sensitivity or the portfolio’s value to a 1% change in yield to a given maturity.
- Kiting is the aggressive use of a financial instrument to obtain additional credit that is not authorised.
- Knock-out option is a type of option with an in-built mechanism of worthless expiration in case an underlying asset reaches a specified price.
- Leverage is a financial strategy suggesting using borrowed capital as a funding source when investing in expanding the company’s assets and generating returns on risk capital.
- Liability is something owned by a company or an individual. In most cases, it is a sum of money.
- Liquidity is the ease with which an asset or security can be converted into real cash without affecting its market price.
- Low of demand is a fundamental economic principle suggesting that at a higher price, the demand will be lower.
- Mosaic theory is a strategy security analysts use to research a given company. It involves gathering public, non-public, and non-material data about a company to estimate its securities’ underlying value and enable the analyst to inform the recommendations to clients.
- Moving average is a financial indicator used in technical analysis to smooth out the price data. It mitigates insufficient price changes due to various market factors.
- Mutual fund is a managed fund that collects money from participating investors to invest in securities.
- Negative correlation is a relationship between two variables suggesting that one increases and the other decreases.
- Net asset value represents an entity calculated as its total value minus its total value of entity liabilities.
- Non-security is an alternative investment not traded on a public exchange as stocks and bonds are and includes art, rare coins, life insurance, gold, and diamonds.
- October effect is a market anomaly in that prices of assets tend to decline during October with no evident reasons.
- Option is a financial instrument that is based on an underlying security as a stock.
- Over-the-counter is securities trading through a broker-dealer network rather than a centralised authority like the NY Stock Exchange.
- Par value or nominal value is the face value of a bond or the stock value stated in a company’s corporate charter.
- Price action is a movement of a security’s price over time.
- Put option is a contract providing the buyer with the right, but not the obligation, to sell — or sell short — a specified amount of an underlying security at a predetermined price within a specified period.
- Quad witching is a date of simultaneous expiration of stock options, index futures, and index futures options derivatives contracts four times a year.
- Quantitative trading is an approach based on strategies informed by the results of quantitative analysis, which rely on mathematical computations and number crunching to identify trading opportunities.
- Quick ratio is an indicator of a company’s short-term liquidity position that measures its ability to meet short-term obligations with most liquid assets.
- Ratchet effect is an economic term suggesting a difficult or impossible process to reverse or stop once it occurs.
- Ratio analysis is a method of quantifying a company’s liquidity to estimate its performance over time compared to its peers.
- Rho is the rate of change of the price of a derivative relative to a change in the risk-free rate of interest.
- Security is a financial instrument that is fungible, negotiable, and holds a particular monetary value.
- Strike price is a set price at which the option contract owner can buy or sell the underlying security.
- Stock market is an exchange in which shares of publicly held companies are bought and sold.
- Swap is a derivative contract in which two parties exchange their cash flows and liabilities from two financial instruments.
- Technical analysis is a way to analyse and predict stock price movements based on past market performance and data such as price and volume.
- Trader is an individual buying or selling financial assets across various markets for himself or on behalf of someone else.
- Transaction is a complete agreement between a seller and a buyer to exchange goods, services, or other valuable assets for money.
- Ulcer Index (UI) is a technical indicator that estimates downside risk in terms of the depth and duration of an asset price decline.
- Unilateral contract is a one-sided agreement in which an offeror promises to pay only after the completion of a task by the offeree.
- Unlimited liability is a complete legal responsibility that business owners and partners assume for all business debts.
- Underlying security is a stock or bond on which a derivative instrument is based.
- Valuation is the process of analysis that aims to determine the current forecast value of an asset or a company.
- Volatility is a statistical measure of the dispersion of returns for a given security or market index. In most cases, the higher the volatility, the riskier the security.
- Volume means the amount of an asset that changes hands over a period of time, often over the day.
- Wash sale is a strategy of selling assets with a loss and purchasing a substantially similar one 30 days before or after the sale.
- Weak longs is a term referring to investors playing long and quickly exiting the positions once the price shows signs of decline.
- Weak shorts is a term referring to investors holding a short position who quickly exit when the prices show evidence of strengthening.
- XD is a symbol indicating that a security is trading ex-dividend.
- X-efficiency refers to the degree of efficiency maintained by companies under conditions of imperfect competition meaning that companies get maximum output for their input.
- Xenocurrency is any currency that is traded in markets outside of its domestic borders. The Greek prefix “xeno” means foreign.
- Yearly rate of return is the amount earned on a particular fund for the entire year.
- Yield is the earnings generated and realised on an investment over a specific time frame.
- Yield spread is the difference between yields on differing debt instruments of varying maturities, credit ratings, issuer, or risk levels, calculated by deducting the yield of one instrument from the other.
- Zero-cost is a strategy suggesting trading or making business decisions that do not entail any expense to execute.
- Zero-volatility spread (Z-spread) is the constant spread that makes the price of a security equal to the present value of its cash flows when added to the yield at each point on the spot rate Treasury curve where cash flow is received.
- Zig Zag indicator is an indicator that minimises the impact of random price fluctuations and is used to help identify price trends and changes in them.
