Did any particular book alter or set the foundations for you trading outlook and strategy? Or perhaps these books were the very reason that you even considered trading in the first place. As for me, the first few books I read were by far the best: 1- Market Wizards by Jack Schwager 2- New Market Wizards by Jack Schwager 3- Stock Market Wizards by Jack Schwager 4- High Probability Trading by Marcel Link 5- Trading for a Living by Alexander Elder 6- The Secrets of Economic Indicators by Ben Baumohl 7- The Quants by Scott by Scott Patterson 8- Inside the black box by Rishi Narang In my opinion, those books are just a cut above the rest. Feel free to include a short summary as to how the book influence you.
Mine would be: Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom-Van Tharp This was the first book to expose me to what I feel are the fundamentals underlying any successful trading approach; mathematical expectency, personal psychology, position sizing, and thinking in terms of risk/reward multiples. Without that foundation I would probably still be flipping through Money Magazine for "Hot Stocks to Buy Now!". Campaign Trading - John Sweeney In Campaing Trading, Sweeney introduced the idea that rather than following a "one-note" trading system that only addressed a specific type of market (ie. tending) one needed to think of trading as an ongoing campaign and develop a portfolio of techniques that would allow a trader to exploit a variety of market types such as trending, counter trend, retracements, etc. He also introduces the concept of Maximum Adverse Excursion which has been an extremely helpful framework for developing exits and profit targets. This concept was expanded upon in Sweeney's other book, Maximum Adverse Excursion, and by David Stendahl from Rina Systems. The Definitive Guide to Position Sizing - Van Tharp This book gave me a framework for understanding various position sizing techniques as well as how they could be applied to achieve various performance objectives for a given system. His SQN system evaluation metric also is a very helpful tool for evaluating the quality of a trading approach and its suitability for various position sizing approaches.
http://www.amazon.com/Decision-Traps-Barriers-Decision-Making-Overcome/dp/0671726099 This comes by way of reading the mercenary trader blog.... it was a very good piece of advice from his blog to read this book. Also: Steven Drobny's the invisible hands - http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=drobny&x=0&y=0 inside the house of money http://www.amazon.com/Inside-House-...=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295938230&sr=1-2 http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Stru...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295938280&sr=1-1 Charles Hugh Smith's general socio economic political advice in todays macro situation... there is enough unique insights to be of value to a longer term trader.
This one will become a new classic: http://www.mercenarytrader.com/2011/01/weekender-diary-of-a-professional-commodity-trader-review/
Inside the house of money was a great read, thanks for the recontamination. I can send a .pdf file if anyone wants a copy. I'm almost done reading Trader Vic. It's quite refreshing to read a book by an actual market wizard. I particularly enjoyed reading his perspective on Austrian Economics and his philosophy on success. I'd highly recommended it.
Trading in the zone.When I started to look at the markets like being a casino owner rather then a get rich quick scheme it turn me into a successful and profitable trader
I don't think so. It's a decent read, to be sure, but "classic" may be a bit over the top. I found the author did not always apply his own rules, which I found a bit annoying but, on the other hand, realistic. Also, one of his own take-aways from the diary exercise is that he realized trend lines (diagonals) were perhaps not as reliable for entry setup as were the alternatives. You would think that he'd have come to this realization somewhat earlier during his decades-long trading career. I'm just saying.
The honesty and plain-spokenness of the author, combined with a 30 year track record of 41%+ compound returns, is part of what makes it so compelling. As for mistakes and flaws -- he's fully and admittedly human, which is a big part of the point. You'd think the results would get a little more respect in terms of the wisdom imparted... I'm just saying.