%% Good points Msurfer; + make sure to study the trend part of the market that is not random.Some of the ETFs + benchmark related stuff may differ.M t turtle.
I would stay away from traditional trading books. They will only fill your mind with concepts that are not based in reality. Instead, read books that will improve your thinking and your habits. Trading is simple. If a book makes trading sound complicated, throw it away.
Trading books...hmmm I think that if you are truly motivated and individual you or they will search out and read as many as possible..I avoid the titles that promise wealth and am attracted to those that technical or psychological. My personal favorites so far are authors rather than titles..John Murphy, Martin Pring, Brett Steenbarger. There is a course offered by the MARKET TECHNICIANS ASSOCIATION that has three modules and you gotta travel for testing...maybe books on finance if you want to understand whats going on in the news- squawkbox at 6am isn't bad to keep you informed and then theres Cramers books.
Funny how many popular trading books are written by authors that openly admit to have done poorly with their own trading. Why not buy the rare few books written by proven winners spanning several decades? They tend to not sugar coat things - people are inclined to want to buy into the fantasy as opposed to the harsh realities. Paul Tudor Jones videos get very little traffic - whereas an unknown with no track record posts a title like "made $3,000 in 3 minutes" and gets a zillion hits. People want to believe in the 'pie in the sky'.
Besides trading books read some gambling literature,about playing roulette etc.Some of these books have over the head titles promising a lot,but what I liked in them that they have chapters where math is main subject rather than talk about all the indicators.Remember reading somewhere maybe LBR's book that tests concluded that Donchian Channel was best at around 56% success rate and MACD the worst. Math never lies,much better than opinions.Gambling books will teach you about all kind of betting progressions not Martingale,but D'Alembert,Labouchere,Oscar's Grind.They will have one downside only even R:R,on another hand looking at sets data about the spins of roulette table you will see a bit of clarity.What happen between bet and result of it is far more clear than charts which show you that you got from price you bought at to sold at profit,but in the process there were variations of ranges and some price bars closed below their openings.You need a bit of clarity to process this information.Once I bought from the internet real data of roulette spins in some casino in Hamburg and spend months analyzing them.There was no breakthrough in that,but this study increased my knowledge.One needs to understand risk management part.I read here on ET post that risk management section has the least number of threads,exit is far more important than entry.Rodney Dangerfield would say"I tell ya i get no respect" There is also a lot of game theory staff Parrondo's paradox,Monty Hall problem that is worth reading. Also read this forum as if it was a one of the books.My big break came from single post here on ET,but this dude has not posted anything in eleven years.He posted often and in one post he wrote staff that put me in right direction.Ignore the food fights and jokes and read all ,someone else experience is worth reading about.I did acknowledge very early that was not gonna be the smartest dude who ever ventured into this subject.Read and listen what others had to say,saves you time reading the actual books.