A movie called Moneyball came out staring Brad Pitt. I saw it in an add and then saw the book with the same name by Michael Lewis at the book store.

I decided to read the book and then see the movie. It was a very good thing I did. I barely followed the movie as the director bounced around in time and space. Brad Pitt couldn’t save this script and director from killing the story.

However, the book is at a different level. I would recommend it as a good read for anyone doing trading.

First, let me say that I am not a fan of Baseball. I only saw one major league game as a kid. Nothing excited me about it.

Second, after reading this book, I can appreciate the romance and the appeal that the sport provides.

As an engineer, the elegance of tracking a game in a fixed area, with a basis for determining probabilities is very appealing. With todays computing power, and video capability, scholars can dissect a game and analyze meaningful data using rigorous statistical analysis.

If you read the book, think of the parallels between Major League Baseball (MLB) being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century by Bill James and the Sabermetrics community, who later guided Sandy Alderson, Billy Beane, Paul DePodesta, J.P. Ricciardi to overthrow the existing structure of MLB.

Think of the parallels that the age of modern computing, lower entry costs and more democratic levels of access to this power, and the overthrow of the traditional stock brokerage. The brokers made a very nice living taking a cut of each of your trades. Now they have all but disappeared as eTrade and Ameritrade has allowed the masses to cut the cost of execution to incredibly low levels.

If you enjoy an underdog story, trading, and applied mathematics, this is a very nice read.

Happy Trading!
William