Table of Contents

Preface Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Market Conditions and Sentiment Chapter 3: Talk Isn’t Cheap Chapter 4: Geopolitical Events Chapter 5: Weather and Natural Disasters Chapter 6: Market Interventions Chapter 7: Periodic Economic Reports Chapter 8: Size Matters Chapter 9: Bubbles, Crashes, Corners, and Market Crises Chapter 10: The Accidental Catalyst Index

Promotional Information

Markets face more volatility -- and more kinds of volatility -- than ever before. If you can understand volatility, you can leverage enormous profit opportunities unavailable to the typical investor. If you fail to understand it, your portfolio will be buffeted constantly by shocks you weren't expecting. Trading Catalysts is the first complete guide to the events that spark large, rapid changes in market prices. Drawing on many recent examples, renowned futures and trading expert Robert I. Webb reveals how to anticipate market catalysts -- and project the magnitude, duration, and breadth of the price changes they induce. You'll learn how to predict the impact of policymakers' comments (intentional and unintentional); elections, terrorism, and other changes in geopolitical risk; scheduled and unanticipated economic reports; even company earnings and other corporate announcements. Webb helps you decode the hidden messages in corporate press releases, and assess both the truth and market implications of unverified rumors. You'll learn how to recognize apparently inconsequential events that spark major rallies or breaks; predict positive or negative feedback loops that drive markets substantially higher or lower; even identify market overreactions. Simply put, market volatility is anything but random. You can master it and you can profit from it.

About the Author

Robert I. Webb teaches Financial Trading at both the McIntire School of Commerce and the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on derivative securities and markets, trading, and incentive economics. He is the author of Macroeconomic Information and Financial Trading(Oxford, 1994) and has written numerous academic papers. Webb has traded treasury bonds and other fixed income securities for the Investment Department of the World Bank; traded futures as a “local” on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; designed new financial futures and option contracts for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; served in the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget during President Reagan’s first term; and served at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He previously taught at the University of Southern California. Webb is editor of The Journal of Futures Markets, a leading academic journal on derivative securities and markets. He earned his Ph.D. in finance from the University of Chicago, and has published widely in both academic journals and the financial press.

Reviews

The book provides broad, interesting coverage of these trading catalysts... -- H. Mayo, The College of New Jersey (Reprinted with permission from CHOICE, copyright by the American Library Association)