Gift Ideas for Traders, Brokers, Financial Advisors, etc.

Well, the end of 2006 is nigh, and many of us celebrate Christmas or similar gift-giving occasions. So, I thought the time was right to start putting together some gift ideas for stock traders, stock brokers, financial advisors, etc. Of course, lots of us have refined tastes, and like nice, expensive, things in general. Here, I just want to focus on trading/finance themed gifts.

Here are the ideas I’ve found so far. I may make additional posts as I find more items.

Novelty Items

• There were several fun items at www.stockmarketstore.com. Here were a couple of them that stood out to me.
  • Apron that says “Will Cook for Money to Trade”, for the trader that also cooks.
  • I Trade, Therefore I Am Shirt
  • A “Hope” Candle, may it burn brightly for you in your time of need.
• Another site I liked was GiveAShare.com, which allows you to gift an actual framed share of a stock. I’ve traded millions of shares, but never actually held a share of stock in my hands. Kind of neat.
• There’s the We have charts and graphs to back us up, so F$@K OFF Buttons and Stickers (I originally saw this on Tim Knight’s Blog). Right now, it looks like they’re selling the button but not the sticker, but I suppose you could inquire with the bitchybuttons.biz store.
  
• If you have Jim Cramer fans to find gifts for, you can get Mad Money paraphernalia at The NBC Universal Store.

Trading/Finance Related DVDs

• Trading Places the comedy with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy as commodities traders
• Rogue Trader. A true story. I’m not kidding, I seriously never get tired of watching this movie… I think all traders can sympathize with how strong the urge is sometimes to make the same mistake that guy did (essentially just doubling down over and over on more and more margin). It’s incredible that he wasn’t stopped sooner.
• Barbarians at the Gate, a comedy loosely based on the leveraged buy-out of RJR-Nabisco
• Other People’s Money, a fictional comedy about a corporate buy-out, starring Danny Devito.
• Wall Street. Do I really need to say anything about this movie? Great film. Youtube has the famous Greed is Good speech, if you haven’t seen it.
• Wall Street’s ugly stepsister, Boiler Room. I thought the best scenes in Boiler Room were the scenes when they were watching Wall Street, but people seem to like this movie, so I’ll include it in the list.

Trading/Finance Related Books

There are a few in my Books I Enjoy page. Of books that came out in 2006, I thought these two were good:

• Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst: A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market. It was an entertaining book, but also very informative about how the lines between the analysts and the investment bankers at major firms were scandalously blurry.
• Winning the Day Trading Game: Lessons and Techniques from a Lifetime of Trading (Wiley Trading), centered on the idea of keeping a 24-hour multi-market context in mind, and the importance of key numbers like round numbers, and the opening price for the year, etc.

…and here’s a good book I read this year, but which came out in 2004:

• Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, which really made me think a lot about how much I owe my success to skill, and how much to dumb luck.