I was kicking around in Barnes & Noble the other day and noticed this book by this Ari Kiev called Trading In The Zone. I thought I was experiencing "temporary insanity", which I think we all have from time to time. I have the Mark Douglas book Trading in the Zone. (A very good book.) I became curious as to why Kiev would write the same type book as Douglas and name it the same thing!?! Seems a bit confusing and unscrupulous to me. I browsed through the Kiev book. Appears to be a decent read. Anyone have any insight as to what's behind the naming of his book the same as Douglas? Wouldn't this be a huge copyright infringement?
I just finished mark douglas's book. Total crock of crap and a big waste of my time. Luckily I got it through my library. Second worst trading book that I ever read.
Gotta tell you hoodooo, you're the FIRST person I ever heard of giving such a review to the Mark Douglas book. IMHO, I thought it was excellent. Oh well....what's that old saying.....different streaks for different freaks!?! Have you tried the Kiev book?
BSAM The Douglas book was published in Jan 2001, the Kiev book in Feb 2001. He was probably not aware of the Douglas book at the time of publication.
The Douglas book tells you how to make probabilistic decisions in an environment that has random variables. It really doesn't ask you to control your emotions or to cure your psych problems first. If you are really making probabilistic decisions, then you will calmly evaluate the trade unfolding after you 'drop the quater and pull the handle' even if you are otherwise very emotional or have lots of baggage. (And a number of traders really do have lots of baggage and quirks, yet they can trade without going into therapy.) Neither does it ask you to get into some Zen flow state. Thats putting the cart before the horse. The critical thing is to know what probabilistic decisions are and then make sure you are actually making your real life trading decisions that way. A good analogy is presented in the Steenbarger book, The Psyvchology of Trading, where he uses the pinball game as an example of how to employ an edge in an environment that behaves probabilistically.
I see. However, these days seems like it would be a matter of simplicity for the legal departments of a publishing firm to check for possible copyright violations. Just found it somewhat amusing.
Ah yes pin ball. That's were you shake the machine and hope not to tilt it. I think that you have to be a market maker to equate that to trading.
Interesting comment...what was the FIRST worst trading book you ever read? BTW, my take on Douglas's book was it could be boiled down to one page. Maybe one sentence: "Trade without fear, but not recklessly." (which always made a lot of sense to me...still easier said than done...like most trading axioms). Peace, RS
Pinball is a good analogy. And a good analogy is useful for people who aren't sure what probabilistic decisions are. There are areas in the board where if the ball goes there, bad things tend to happen more often than not. There are areas of the board where good things tend to happen more than not. There are other places (like those round pins) where the outcome is a coin toss (its no benefit to play those). Some areas are deterministic, if your ball goes there, then you can rack up points reliably. If you play the game the way its designed and go for the big score, you'll lose your ball. You need to find the areas of game where good stuff tends to happen more frequently and keep your ball in play there even though sometimes you'll still lose a ball doing that.