CFD’s Made Simple: A Straightforward guide to contracts for difference is a 2009 book published by Peter Temple. The book promises to provide individuals with a concise guide to CFD’s all written in an accessible way. Peter Temple appears to be a journalist who writes on a number of investment related topics previously having been an equity analyst for 18 years. A number of free to access articles written by Peter Temple can be found here and may be worth a read if your considering buying CFD’s Made Simple. 

The book covers all the key differences between CFD’s and other ways of trading the financial markets including Spread betting and traditional share trading. It also gives some good details on the how leverage offered by CFD’s can be used to a traders advantage. Peter Temple covers all of these topics in a concise and accessible way and he should be commended for doing so. However much of this information is available for free online, though I do have to say that Peter Temple provides a concise and accessible presentation of this information. 

However the book really falls down in other areas. For example there is no real information provided on technical analysis, something that many CFD traders are deeply interested in. For this your going to have to purchase another book. There’s not much covered about what systems a trader could use to trade CFD’s or information on how to be successful at trading Contracts for difference, the book is mainly concerned with the workings of Contracts for difference. 

All in all, the book doesn’t make for a bad introduction to the actual workings of Contracts for Difference. But this is generally not what people are looking for when they purchase a book on CFD’s, what they want is a book which explains the workings of CFD’s as well as introducing them to some of the important concepts of trading. Allowing them to go on and trade successfully for themselves, in this regards Peter Temple’s book fails which is why I personally don’t feel that it is worth the money.