E-Book Review: Forex Exchange Training Manual by Lehman Brothers

Lehman Brothers was a titan of financial trading before going bankrupt in September 2008. In March 2010, Anton R. Valukas and his law firm Jenner & Block produced a 2200-page report on the company. It was used in the bankruptcy court hearings. Consequently, the report has been made public. To our surprise, a document titled Forex Exchange Training Manual was a part of the report. Basically, thanks to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy court hearings, their Forex trading manual was leaked and made a part of public domain. The image to the left is a joke, of course, as there was no such book published. The manual is in electronic form and is devoid of the most other normal book features. Still, it is a very interesting e-book to read.

What is it about?

The book is divided into four sections: spot, forwards, swaps, and options. The first section is the most interesting one to an average online Forex trader as it deals with the "normal" leveraged FX trading we are all used to. However, other sections are also worthy of your attention — at least to get acquainted with the terminology.

If you expect to find some secret strategies and mystic formulas in the training manual used at a financial institution that was considered as one of the most powerful during its days of glory, then you will be disappointed. There is nothing like that in the e-book. It does not discuss the trading process, but is rather like an introduction of the basic terms used by the currency traders who were working at Lehman at that time.

You will learn some important conventions, quick rules of thumb to calculate profit and loss in different currencies, and stuff like that, but it will not even try to teach you trading.

Why read it?

If you are already familiar with Forex and its basics, then you might probably ask yourself why waste time on this piece? Definitely, you do not have to read it — most probably, you will not miss anything important. However, it is worth reading due to the following points:

• The document offers a glimpse at what a real institutional player considered important to give as a first step into Forex to its own traders.
• It is written in a no-bullshit style with the idea of giving only useful information to the reader. There is no word fluff, no side jokes, nothing that will distract you; at the same time, it has quiz and problem-solving sections (with answers) to practice — a perfect crash course for a beginner.
• Even experienced online traders often forget that spot FX is just a part of the bigger foreign exchange market. This e-book offers a great starting material for learning about forwards, swaps, and options (vanilla only, no binaries, sorry).

If the above-mentioned information does not induce your interest (for example, you are a well-established trader already) or if you are a newbie who is always looking for new strategies, you can safely ignore the Lehman's manual.

If you have any questions, comments, opinion regarding the Forex Exchange Training Manual by Lehman Brothers, please feel free to discuss it on our forum.