Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
This definitely true for sort of book "I make you rich in 2 weeks, trading the markets"
But for a lot of the books out there agreeing with the ideas or not, if you take one or two sentences out of it, that help you make better trades it is worth the money. Meaning the standard price for book, depending on your lot size is what 1,2,3 ticks. As far as time goes, sitting in front of a quite market can be the quite boring.
I'd say the majority of book authors aren't even trading profitably. Trading is hard, writing books about it and pretending to trade is much easier.
An example is Tim Ord's book. He has the "secrets" to price & volume. Yet in his own trading, he doesn't even use this. And he has been short the S&P since the 800's.
Another example is Kase's book. I spent weeks learning that, practicing it, trading it on simulator. That's weeks of my time lost.
Another example is Larry Williams's books.
Another is Marcel Link's book. Total garbage.
I could go on and on. None of that stuff works.
It seems most authors write books in order to promote their indicators, software, newsletter, or webinars. They're all in it for something. And it's similar for blogs. Most blogs have an agenda - to sell webinars or software. And the free webinars have an agenda too, they want you to sign up for their newsletter or chatroom. It's all promotion.
In this case I think fewer is better. Less is more.
Basically anything that teaches you a method to trade profitably is most likely bogus.
Books that teach you about yourself, about trading but not how to trade, or about psychology are much more useful. Market Wizards, the books about Livermoore, the Pit Bull book, and possibly psychology books (I haven't read any yet). For example I recently read Crisis Economics which was excellent. I'm currently reading " Devil take the hindmost" which is about the various bubbles in history.
I recently read " How we decide" which was awesome and had a serious impact on my trading. After reading that I started journaling and I realized how multiple timeframes and sine waves were just confusing me. They talk about how the human brain can only handle 4-10 things at a time (most people are towards 4). So I was trying to monitor 20+ things. That led to confusion. Now I trade off one timeframe just looking at a couple charts and I'm doing much better. That book taught me, rather convinced me, of much more than any book on trading.
I'm currently reading Outliers. The 10,000 hour rule is great. It explains why so many fail in trading. They don't stick around for the 10,000 hours. They either give up or blow up. I estimate my hours around 7,500. So I'm close.
I think books like this can teach us much more than a book about setups, chart patterns, indicators, setups, etc.
This is all just my opinion. Be careful of any author be it a book or a blog who happens to have a newsletter or software or a trading room or webinar or DVDs or anything else to sell you. It's a huge conflict of interest. He can't tell you everything in the book because they he'd have nothing to sell. So the book is a teaser to get you to buy something else. Heck be skeptical even if they're not selling anything.
And remember that we have no proof that any of these authors are actually profitable traders. So by reading books from people who aren't pretending to be profitable traders, we can avoid the conflict of interest and learn a lot about ourselves which is much more helpful.
I hope you find that useful, I really don't want to debate the subject. If people learn from reading the books I despise then that's great and I'm happy for you. Whatever works.
Cunparis, Some interesting books you've listed that I will check out.
I agree fully on the "how to get rich" or "learn my method that made me millions" type of books being useless. I've never been attracted to those books as I'm always leery that the author is a snake-oil salesman.
Depending on where one is in their learning (I think most traders are woefully unprepared), there are numerous classic technical analysis books that I believe are a must read. I took the CMT years ago and the base curriculum forced me to read about T.A. disciplines that I wasn't aware of, or thought I knew but really didn't know much. Some of it I ended up dismissing, as it didn't strike a chord with me but it was still useful to me.
The barriers to entry in trading are pretty low. Open an account, and you're given all the necessary tools for next to nothing $. Read a couple of blogs and many think they know what's necessary. I understand, people are in a hurry to find the keys to success, but reading and learning are part of the 10,000 hrs imo. It's hard work and that's why most people quit and fail.
I have read "Outliers" as well. It is a recommended and enjoyable read. Also enjoyed "The Wisdom of the Crowds" and "Why Most Things Fail". These are not exactly books that belong into a trading library, but they do have an impact.
One of my favourites is "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Robert Axelrod. For me this is a trading book. If you understand how strategies evolved during the computer tournaments, you should soon have an idea that this can be applied directly to any market place like a futures exchange. Algorithmic trading strategies, which now account for over 50% of volume compete with discretionary traders in different time frames. If you have read Axelrod's book you also will also know, why simple strategies, such as the breakout strategies of the Turtle Traders do not work any more.
As traders we are just agents in a complex game. There is no absolute truth, the strategies feed on each other. There are co-operative strategies (supplying liquidity) and non-cooperative strategies (asking for liquidity), all of them evolving during time. Many species are already extinct.
I have just purchased another book by Axelrod "The Complexity of Cooperation", but read the other one first.
I just picked up the Al Brooks book, "Reading Price Charts Bar By Bar". I think that will keep me busy for a while
studying the technical side of things.
I would like a book, also, for my mind.
What would be the better psychology book...
"Market Wizards" by Jack Schwager or...
"Trading in the Zone" by Mark Douglas or...
"Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator" by Edwin LeFevre
I eventually will have all of the above, but I need a good book for my trading mind now...
To start with: All books are definitely worth reading and can be considered as classics.
Market Wizards
"Market Wizards" and "New Market Wizards" by Jack Schwager are both excellent books that give an overview of the biographies and trading methods of some of the top traders. Most astonishing is how different these guys and their methods are. Absolutely recommended reading. I have read the books twice.
However, these are not books on psychology.
Trading in the Zone
In my opinion the books "The Daily Trading Coach" and "Enhancing Trader Performance" by Brett Steenbarger and the books "The Disciplined Trader" and "Trading in the Zone" by Mark Douglas are amongst the best books that have ever been written on trading psychology.
So if you want to buy books on trading psychology, these are the books you are looking for. Fight the demons that prevent you from following your rules.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
This is a wonderful book written in 1923, something to read during a week-end, but again it is not a book on trading psychology.