Best Forex trading books of all time

Forex is one of the most dynamic markets making Forex trading a vast and complex subject. There are numerous methods for learning how to understand the Forex market and trade it effectively. Traders can choose the most appropriate methods according to their free time availability, budget, knowledge, and experience. The options might include practicing on demo accounts, getting advice from experienced traders, watching video tutorials, enrolling in a Forex trading course, or reading Forex trading books for beginners.

Books can provide a strong foundation for your Forex education, expertise, and future trading performance. With the help of the master guides, recommendations, tips, explanations, and extensive instructions provided within the books you can start from the very beginning (basics of Forex) and progress at your own pace.

It is the greatest wisdom that the sooner you begin learning something, the sooner you will master it. Every successful Forex trader you come across in magazines or on the internet had to start somewhere. Many of them decided to write books about their experience, successes, failures, and strategies and eventually began to deliver extensive handouts for beginner, intermediate, and advanced Forex traders. Other expert traders in the industry have also listed their recommended books for Forex trading.

To save you the time and great effort of finding the most suitable books for your trading goals, capital, and interests we decided to provide the list of the most famous, recognized, and time-tested Forex books to get you started. All of the books discussed in the article have withstood the test of time and provide a basic, but progressive approach to understanding how currency pairs and their prices move or how Forex markets work in general. Reading these books before you start trading can provide you with insights into the concepts and prepare you to be a better trader than you were yesterday.

Best Forex Books to Read in 2021

This list of the books provided below covers every aspect of Forex trading. The majority of the authors of these books are well-known, long-term, and profitable investors who are not interested in selling courses online. This is where the appeal of reading the books on this list comes into play – you can literally learn everything about some of the best traders who ever lived. With numerous topics covered in the books ranging from technical analysis to trading psychology, you will be equipped with all the necessary tools you need to capitalize on the volatility of the present year. Become a better trader as you pick up the best ideologies, strategies, and processes in the best Forex books 2021 below.

SWAT Guide: 360 Degree Trading and Analysis

SWAT Guide is a comprehensive book written in 2020 by Chris Svorcik, one of the most famous Forex traders and Technical & Wave Analysts. Chris runs his own blog on FXStreet with daily Wave Analysis and is a creator of the enhanced trading method known as ECS.SWAT (simple wave analysis and trading). He also is the founder of Elite CurrenSea which is a leading Forex, CFDs, and Options website.

The book concentrates on various aspects of Forex trading which might be attractive for both novices and expert traders. The main focus of the book is on understanding technical analysis and price charts. SWAT Guide is considered to be one of the best Forex books for advanced traders who are looking for practical examples on how to analyze price movements with more context and in a more time-efficient way. The concepts discussed in the book are explained in relation to both manual and automated trading.

The best thing about SWAT Guide: 360 Degree Trading and Analysis is the fact that the book offers 98% of practical solutions rather than theoretical explanations of terms, concepts, and trading glossaries. Thus, it could serve as a detailed guide for the traders to spot price chart patterns, identify impulsive and corrective price swigs, or understand the trend direction of the price. You will hardly ever find so many practical guidelines even in the list of the top books for Forex trading. Even though very little theory is used in the book it still managed to convey the main idea behind the pattern repetition throughout the time across all financial instruments and all time frames.

The book is one of its kind in nature and is absolutely unique. The Forex trading method described in the book – Simple Wave Analysis and Trading (SWAT 2.0) is an authentic method designed by the author of the book. It offers a refined approach to wave trading but at the same time, it does not require knowing all of its ways. The readers of the book will have an understanding of how Fibonacci, price action, and oscillators can be used to find the price swings. The practical knowledge gained through following this book can be utilized and used immediately during the process of reading. So, it means that you can trade Forex while reading the book and observe your progress over time.

One of the reasons why SWAT Guide: 360 Degree Trading and Analysis is one of the must read books for Forex traders is the fact that it offers from A to Z coverage of all the key concepts throughout its 600 pages. It is suitable for all kinds of traders with various experience levels ranging from beginner to intermediate to advanced traders. The e-guide is available worldwide and costs between 24 to 26 Euros depending on where you purchase it. It is your top option if you want to easily grasp the ideas behind the following concepts in Forex trading:

• Support
• Resistance
• Price patterns
• Trend
• Momentum
• Candles
• Chart Patterns

The Black Book of Forex Trading

The Black Book of Forex Trading is one of the top 10 books for FX trading written by Paul Langer, an experienced and recognized full-time trader with over eight years in the industry as a professional. Paul Langer has his unique trading style distinguishing him from other experts on the market. He trades based on Price Action with simple technical concepts that could easily be applied to contemporary standards of Forex trading. He runs a specialized blog dedicated to Forex, its market fundamentals, big trends, and complex concepts. Paul has been a special guest to numerous financial podcasts and other specialized blogs, as well.

The Black Book of Forex Trading is currently an Amazon best-seller claiming a dominant position among the best books for Forex trading. The book provides an insight into a proven method to become a profitable Forex trader in less than a quarter of the year (4 months) while remaining financially free. The main purpose of the book is to equip the readers with the skills and agility necessary to use the financial market’s instability in its favor. It teaches the upcoming traders how to overcome the fear of failure and how to remain pragmatic while entering this highly dynamic industry. The Black Book of Forex Trading mainly targets beginners and intermediates who seek to get the necessary tools for robust tactics and strategies. This is why it is a decent Forex strategies book, as well.

The author of this book does not dig deep into various Forex strategies and their respective histories on the market but instead draws a definite winning strategy for various personal lifestyles, trading capitals, risk tolerance, and trader’s goals in Forex. The book is not as massive as the previous one we have discussed. It contains over 80 pages and is divided into three main parts. Despite its small size, this book has brought incredible recognition for its author who has won an FXStreet award in 2018 for best analysis and received another educational award in 2016 at the UK Forex Awards.

Furthermore, whenever you search best Forex books free download, it’s likely that this book will appear as the first option. You can get either a print version on Amazon for 17 US dollars, a Kindle version for 2 or 3 US dollars, or look for free pdf versions online and on forums. The Black Book of Forex Trading serves as an extensive handbook on how to enter the Forex market with lower risks, how to strategize for profitable trades and many other matters that traders are often concerned with. Among the various topics covered in the book here are some of the main lessons that readers will be mastering at the end of the book:

• Defending against market downturn scenarios
• Making money on a regular basis
• Assuring one’s financial freedom within specific limitations and boundaries.
• Developing enough confidence to trade with the necessary knowledge and numbers in place
• How to become a successful trader in four months

Forex – 3 Manuscripts

Forex – 3 Manuscripts is a classic! It is another Amazon best-seller recognized as one of the best Forex trading books for beginners, intermediates, or advanced traders seeking new outlooks and strategies on the currency market. The book was released in 2016 by Matthew Maybury who is pretty much a household name for traders with 20 years of experience in the industry. Matthew specializes in Forex trading, day trading, and options trading and runs his own website on the same financial markets, as well. He is an official millionaire up to date and only recently decided to assist novices on the Forex market to follow his success in Forex trading.

As of now, thousands of Forex traders have testified that the books and guidance of Matthew Maybury allowed them to become financially free and independent while trading Forex. All of them support the view that Forex – 3 Manuscripts is essentially leading the list of the best Forex books for beginners. Since the author of the book has written everything from his own experience, his failures, numerous experiments with a lot of different investment strategies, it is extremely easy to understand his logic behind the recommendations and tips that he offers.

The Forex 3 Manuscripts focuses on two broad topics: a beginner’s guide to Forex trading and excellent strategies for high profit and low risk. The beginner’s guide provides a framework for developing a Forex trading strategy and optimizing one’s success. The book focuses on the absolute fundamental components in preparation for an introduction to the 6.6 trillion USD Forex market. As one of the best Forex books to read, this book explains how people should try to earn a certain amount of money over a period of time for specific events such as marriage or retirement. Following the forex market rules, one can make a profit margin of 70-90 percent.

The second section of the book discusses effective forex trading strategies for high profit and low risk. Using various strategies, one can become an expert in Forex. Furthermore, experienced traders can uncover a strategy that no one has ever heard of. The book covers the following topics to help readers learn about foreign exchange:

• Forex Trading Fundamentals
• Identifying and comprehending market trends
• Moving Averages, Candlestick, Scalping, Price Action, Turtle, and other strategies
• lowering the risk of loss
• Street smart strategies for surviving in volatile market conditions

It is not difficult to find the best FX books, but it is tough to find the one suitable for your knowledge, experience, and dedication. The Forex 3 Manuscripts is the perfect solution for traders with various backgrounds and knowledge in the trading industry who want to get access to tips, hacks, and professional advice from experienced traders like Matthew Maybury. The book is 200 pages long divided into two different sections.

The print version of the book can be purchased from Amazon and costs around 9 US dollars, while the Kindle version is available at 5 US dollars only. If you are just getting started in the Forex industry, or already have experience as a trader but want to develop and enhance your trading skills then The Forex – 3 Manuscripts is one of the best Forex books pdf options you can get.

SWAT Guide (short): Method, Software & Strategies

We have already covered another SWAP Guide series book above in the article but we can’t help but admire another edition of the book – the SWAP Guide (short): Method, Software & Strategies by Chris Svorcik. There is a complete version of the book available for the readers, as well. However, we believe that this short guide is comprehensive enough to provide an in-depth analysis of SWAT ideas and an understanding of the concepts in technical analysis.

Well, the key difference between the full and this given shorter version is that the latter one focuses on the most advanced parts of the SWAT method, whereas the complete version covers basic and intermediate parts of it. While the full SWAP Guide book is among the best books for Forex trading beginners, the shorter version is perfect for advanced and professional traders. The book is concerned with a Simple Wave Analysis and Trading (SWAT 2.0) similar to its complete version and offers a refined approach to wave trading with a key focus on SWAT methods, software usage, and strategies.

One of the key distinguishing factors that this book holds against all of its competitors is the fact that it also covers how traders should utilize various trading software. Usually, using the trading platforms, such as MetaTrader (MT4 and MT5) or automated trading terminals (copy traders, trading robots) is what confuses the beginner and sometimes even intermediate traders the most. Hence, SWAT Guide (short): Method, Software & Strategies is definitely on the list of the books for FX trading beginners and intermediate traders can easily use as their main handbooks. The ECS.SWAT guide explains how traders can analyze and comprehend price movements with greater context and in less time. It goes over both manual trading using Chris Svorcik’s SWAT methods and automated trading using Mislav Nikolic’s Ultima EA.

The book is verified and recommended by numerous institutions from the Forex trading industry including the MyFXBook – one of the top Forex trading systems and Forex Peace Army – an ultimate hub of Forex traders, academics, researchers, and reviewers. Even though the target audience of the book is extremely diverse and broad, it is still considered to be the most useful resource for advanced traders, Elliott Wave traders, and Moving average traders. These are the main aspects of Forex trading covered in the shorter version of the SWAT Guide book:

• Education & Trading
• Support & resistance
• Price patterns
• Trend & momentum
• Tools & Indicators
• Moving averages
• Strategies
• Indicators

As the majority of the books for Forex traders, SWAT Guide (short): Method, Software & Strategies is also available in various versions for the readers. Instead of the 600 pages provided in the original book, traders can learn the main concepts in hundreds of pages less. The book can be bought online for 15 Euros in a pdf version. The SWAT Guide series also includes a few other guides for free such as SWAT Guide: Moving Averages Indicator Explained, SWAT Guide: Tech Analysis & Charts, and SWAT Guide: Price Action and the Path of Least Resistance. The readers can download those eBooks directly at the official website of the Elite CurrenSea.

Forex Trading Money Management System

Forex Trading Money Management System is one of the perfect books for Forex trading at any level of experience and expertise. The book is written by one of the most prominent Forex traders and Amazon best-selling authors Don Guy. Don Guy has been trading for more than 25 years now. He has developed his own concept and strategy in Forex trading which he calls the Roulette Trader Money Management System. Under this system, Don manages to crush the Forex market with bigger profits and smaller losses. He wrote down his strategies and ideology to teach his readers to achieve the same success in the Forex industry.

Although Don Guy’s best-selling book – Forex Trading Money Management System focuses on Forex, his system can be applied to any financial market whatsoever. So even if you are not trading currency pairs and not interested in the best books for Forex traders, this particular one will still help you become a better stock trader, commodities trader, or even a crypto trader. The Forex Trading Money Management System book contains a simple theory that uses a simple money management system to reverse the Forex market movement and supports profit optimization. The difference is highlighted on the book’s cover, which compares the market’s performance with and without the system.

The book is commonly referred to as “Roulette Trader Money Management,” and it performs reverse engineering to increase profit while decreasing drawdown in the majority of scenarios at the same time. Before writing one of the best Forex books to read and before becoming a professional trader, the author once went to a Las Vegas casino and lost $2,000 playing Russian roulette.

As a result, this system was designed to “Crush Financial Markets Like a Professional Gambler.” After developing the system, the author returned to Las Vegas with $20 and turned it into a $500 profit in one hour. This is a result of the automated profit locking mechanism, which is used in financial markets. The cover page depicts how profit increases fourfold, and the maximum drawdown accounts for one-third of the total.

Before writing about his unique trading systems in one of the best Forex books ever, he had to check their legitimacy. To test his theories, the author programmed his system into an MT4 trading robot in January 2015. He wanted to automate the entire system. His first live trading experience was with a straightforward trend-following trading strategy. After a few weeks of inactivity, the Forex market erupted, as did Guy’s system! His account immediately doubled in less than 48 hours. It was the first time in his 15-year trading history that he managed to accomplish such success. His trading robots still continue to generate healthy and consistent profits to this day.

The book is 80 pages in length and is available in multiple online stores including Amazon. Since the best FX books free of charge is not a reality, readers have to purchase the book either in a printed version for 16 US dollars or order a Kindle version for just 3 US dollars. The book covers the following topics and much more:

• Introduction to Forex trading
• Consecutive Wins Strategies
• Cycle Targets
• Trading Opposite Directions Simultaneously
• Opposite Trade Signals
• How to Measure Cycle Draw Downs
• How to Compound Cycle Profits

Why read these Forex books at all?

Forex books available online are very different from each other. Even the ones that we have listed above in the article are complete of different kinds. Some explain the basic concepts of Forex, some focus on advanced trading analysis and pricing charts, and others will provide unique and specific trading strategies that are deemed as profitable ones. So how do you decide what type of the best Forex books for trading should you look for? Should you learn the Forex concepts in detail until you reach the advanced level or should you choose a single profitable Forex trading strategy and stick to it?

Depending on your experience, knowledge, trading capital, trading goals, and the time that you have allocated to learning Forex you can make a choice. For instance, if you are low on time and budget then we recommend that you choose a specific strategy book such as Forex Trading Money Management or the SWAT Guides. On the other hand, if you have time to dedicate to learning Forex you can choose between the two other books that we have presented – Forex 3 Manuscripts and The Black Book of Forex Trading. One way or another all these 5 options represent the absolute best Forex trading books.

Some people prefer online Forex courses and believe that it is the most optimal way for Forex education. Others will refer to forums for traders, YouTube tutorials, or extensive online resources such as articles to educate themselves. However, we believe that books are one of the most efficient and cheap ways to learn Forex trading for several reasons.

First of all, the pace at which you are learning is completely up to you. You can spend several days or several months reading and following a specific Forex book. Secondly, you can always get back to the chapters or sections of the book that interest you the most or confuse you to re-read it. Finally, the advantage of reading the best Forex books over watching the Forex video courses is that you can highlight the text, concepts, or ideas that you find interesting in the book, make notes, or rewrite them as notes somewhere else. In any case, the choice absolutely depends on the type of learner that you are and of course the choice that you make when looking for the Forex eBooks and guides.

Bottom line is that Forex books can be as useful or useless as other educational channels that you find. You are the main decision-maker in the learning process and thus, it all comes down to your dedication and effort.

Where to find the best Forex books for trading

In case the list that we presented to you in this article is not enough and you are looking for something else there are several ways you can find a suitable option for you. The first and the most obvious one is to conduct online research. You can either look for Amazon’s best-selling books on Forex trading or approach famous trading academies that provide educational resources to their students or the general public. For instance, if you were to visit the platform of the Elite CurrenSea you would find tons of free and paid resources available, various PDFs and ePub files, as well as webinars and online courses.

Alternatively, you can look for specific Forex traders that are famous or recognized and find out what are their recommended books for Forex trading. Many Forex traders, including the authors of the books mentioned above, have started by reading books on currency trading. Especially back to those times when online resources were either scarce or not available at all, books were the only information channels they could get their hands on. It is not outdated today, as well. The books are valuable sources especially produced by credible authors, organizations, and institutions.

So the best way to find your perfect Forex trading handbook is to simply search for it online, ask for recommendations from prominent FX traders, approach the hubs (like us) who produce a lot of Forex-related content, or ask in the forums.

FAQs on Best Books for Forex traders

What is the best book to read for Forex trading?

Our top five books are SWAT Guide: 360 Degree Trading and Analysis by Chris Svorcik, The Black Book of Forex Trading by Paul Langer, The Forex – 3 Manuscripts by Matthew Maybury, SWAT Guide (short): Method, Software & Strategies, and the Forex Trading Money Management System by Don Guy. The majority of these books are Amazon best-sellers and have thousands of purchases and positive reviews online. However, all five books are very different from each other.

For instance, SWAT Guides, both complete and short versions provide an in-depth overview on Technical Analysis, Software understanding, and complex trading strategies which makes these two sources the best Forex books for advanced traders. The Forex – 3 Manuscripts and the Black Book of Forex Trading are books designed for beginner Forex traders since they explain the main concepts of the market from A to Z. These two books dive into the specifications of price movements across the Forex market, various analytical tools that traders need to utilize and common time-tested strategies.

The last book, however, the Forex Trading Money Management System is written about the personal experience of a trader with over 25 years of expertise in trading. The author offers its own authentic and unique trading strategy that serves to maximize profits and minimize losses. The simplicity of the author’s language and way of conveying the ideas makes Forex Trading Money Management System one of the best Forex trading books for beginners.

What is the best book for beginner day traders?

The Forex – 3 Manuscripts written by Amazon best-selling author Matthew Maybury is the best option for day traders to read. The author himself is an experienced Forex, Options, and a Day Trader with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. He runs his personal website regarding the various financial markets and offers tons of recommendations for both day-traders and long-term traders. However, the book that we mentioned is a comprehensive guide to utilizing various tools and strategies that are popular and common in the Forex trading world, as well as some hidden tips and hacks into succeeding as a day trader in Forex.

It is not difficult to find books for Forex trading, however, it becomes a bit of a struggle when you are looking for books specifically for day trading. That is why The Forex – 3 Manuscripts is an unprecedented leader in this category. On the other hand, there are numerous books that teach basic trading concepts and strategies and could be useful for both day traders and other strategy traders. For instance, the Forex Trading Money Management System written by Don Guy explains the concepts and systems that could be implemented in any trading strategy or even on every financial market apart from Forex.

How long does it take to learn Forex?

Depending on your dedication, free time availability, and passion you could learn to trade Forex either in a month or in a year. Of course, it takes much more time to master the concepts of Forex trading, however, you would be able to identify the best and the most correct trading strategies for a single currency pair in a shorter period of time. The pace at which you learn also depends on the educational channels that you use. If you were to learn from the books for Forex trading beginners then it would take you up to 2-3 months to independently and successfully trade.

On the other hand, if you decide to learn from Forums, YouTube videos, or similar sources without much understanding of the theoretical part of Forex then the following would happen: you would jump into Forex trading very quickly and lose much more than expected. Thus, it would take longer to master Forex and start making profits.