The INDEX Trading Course Workbook

The Index Trading Course Workbook is designed to supplement its companion manual by offering concise summaries and practical exercises to help put your new knowledge into action. The “Media Assignments” are particularly useful in this regard. Be sure to run through each chapter in this workbook as you complete The Index Trading Course in order to reinforce the material.

There are two major reasons why you should increase your index knowledge. First, these market barometers are an important means for understanding big-picture trends along with more subtle market action. And second, it’s simply about trading. Index-based products provide traders with an opportunity to capitalize on broad market and sector moves, leaving behind individual company risk. While there are no guarantees that a whole group of related companies won’t be investigated by the SEC for bad accounting practices, we feel the chance of that is substantially lower than for a single company. Sector investing is where fundamental, technical, and sentiment analysis can really excel. The Index Trading Course begins with a little index history à la Charles Dow, and then transitions to widely followed indexes in today’s markets. Along the way, we investigate index construction, market trends, and general industry group coverage.

The workbook reinforces your knowledge of core stock market indexes along with the sector offerings from a variety of financial entities. You also have the opportunity to incorporate foundational technical techniques into your analysis. Regardless of the complexity of indicators you use down the road, you can never move too far away from the basics.