There are certain stock market-related books that one simply has to read. They will help you understand how to create strategies, develop as a trader, and guide you in terms of the psychology of trading.
I just love when book are practical in character. They should not include absolute basics that can be found on the Internet. They should also be written by traders or psychologists cooperating with traders and trading offices. Their knowledge is highly beneficial.
Today, I would like to familiarize you with books that have had the greatest impact on me since I started trading. I tend to still refer to them from time to time.
I have divided them into two categories:
- Books written by trading gurus, that include practical and universal knowledge
- Books touching upon the topic of trading psychology, which is of key importance while attempting to succeed on the market
Best Trading and Investing books
How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times and Bad, Fourth Edition
Author: William O’neil
About: Through every type of market, William J. O’Neil’s national bestseller, How to Make Money in Stocks, has shown over 2 million investors the secrets to building wealth. O’Neil’s powerful CAN SLIM® Investing System―a proven 7-step process for minimizing risk and maximizing gains―has influenced generations of investors.
Market Wizards, Updated: Interviews With Top Traders
Author: Jack D. Schwager
About: How do the world’s most successful traders amass tens, hundreds of millions of dollars a year? Are they masters of an occult knowledge, lucky winners in a random market lottery, natural-born virtuosi—Mozarts of the markets? In search of an answer, bestselling author Jack D. Schwager interviewed dozens of top traders across most financial markets. While their responses differed in the details, all of them could be boiled down to the same essential formula: solid methodology + proper mental attitude = trading success. In Market Wizards Schwager lets you hear, in their own words, what those super-traders had to say about their unprecedented successes, and he distils their responses down into a set of guiding principles you can use to become a trading star in your own right.
One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market
Author: Peter Lynch
About: More than one million copies have been sold of this seminal book on investing in which legendary mutual-fund manager Peter Lynch explains the advantages that average investors have over professionals and how they can use these advantages to achieve financial success.
America’s most successful money manager tells how average investors can beat the pros by using what they know. According to Lynch, investment opportunities are everywhere. From the supermarket to the workplace, we encounter products and services all day long. By paying attention to the best ones, we can find companies in which to invest before the professional analysts discover them. When investors get in early, they can find the “tenbaggers,” the stocks that appreciate tenfold from the initial investment. A few tenbaggers will turn an average stock portfolio into a star performer.
Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline and a Winning Attitude
Author: Mark Douglas
About: Douglas uncovers the underlying reasons for lack of consistency and helps traders overcome the ingrained mental habits that cost them money. He takes on the myths of the market and exposes them one by one teaching traders to look beyond random outcomes, to understand the true realities of risk, and to be comfortable with the “probabilities” of market movement that governs all market speculation.
Author: Alexander Elder
About: The New Trading for a Living updates a modern classic, popular worldwide among both private and institutional traders. This revised and expanded edition brings time-tested concepts in gear with today’s fast-moving markets, adding new studies and techniques for the modern trader.
This classic guide teaches a calm and disciplined approach to the markets. It emphasizes risk management along with self-management and provides clear rules for both. The New Trading for a Living incudes templates for rating stock picks, creating trade plans, and rating your own readiness to trade. It provides the knowledge, perspective, and tools for developing your own effective trading system.
All charts in this book are new and in full color, with clear comments on rules and techniques. The clarity of this book’s language, its practical illustrations and generous sharing of the essential skills have made it a model for the industry—often imitated but never duplicated. Both new and experienced traders will appreciate its insights and the calm, systematic approach to modern markets.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Author:
About: Reminiscences is a fictionalized account of the life of the securities trader Jesse Livermore. Despite the book’s age, it continues to offer insights into the art of trading and speculation. In Jack Schwagers Market Wizards, Reminiscences was quoted as a major source of stock trading learning material for experienced and new traders by many of the traders who Schwager interviewed. The book tells the story of Livermore’s progression from day trading in the then so-called “New England bucket shops,” to market speculator, market maker, and market manipulator, and finally to Wall Street where he made and lost his fortune several times over. Along the way, Livermore learns many lessons, which he happily shares with the reader.
Way of the Turtle: The Secret Methods that Turned Ordinary People into Legendary Traders
Author:
About: So trading guru Richard Dennis reportedly said to his long-time friend William Eckhardt nearly 25 years ago. What started as a bet about whether great traders were born or made became a legendary trading experiment that, until now, has never been told in its entirety.
Way of the Turtle reveals, for the first time, the reasons for the success of the secretive trading system used by the group known as the “Turtles.” Top-earning Turtle Curtis Faith lays bare the entire experiment, explaining how it was possible for Dennis and Eckhardt to recruit 23 ordinary people from all walks of life and train them to be extraordinary traders in just two weeks.
Only nineteen years old at the time-the youngest Turtle by far-Faith traded the largest account, making more than $30 million in just over four years. He takes you behind the scenes of the Turtle selection process and behind closed doors where the Turtles learned the lucrative trading strategies that enabled them to earn an average return of over 80 percent per year and profits of more than $100 million.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Author:
About: The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn’t shine and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower–and middle–class Americans who can’t pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren’t talking.
Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar’s Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely–really unlikely–heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
Author:
About: In Michael Lewis’s game-changing bestseller, a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders. They band together―some of them walking away from seven-figure salaries―to investigate, expose, and reform the insidious new ways that Wall Street generates profits. If you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you.
The Making of an American Capitalist
Author:
About: Since its hardcover publication in August of 1995, Buffett has appeared on the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Newsday and Business Week bestseller lists. The incredible landmark portrait of Warren Buffett’s uniquely American life is now available in paperback, revised and updated by the author.
Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the twentieth century–an astounding net worth of $10 billion, and counting. His awesome investment record has made him a cult figure popularly known for his seeming contradictions: a billionaire who has a modest lifestyle, a phenomenally successful investor who eschews the revolving-door trading of modern Wall Street, a brilliant dealmaker who cultivates a homespun aura.
Journalist Roger Lowenstein draws on three years of unprecedented access to Buffett’s family, friends, and colleagues to provide the first definitive, inside account of the life and career of this American original. Buffett explains Buffett’s’ investment strategy–a long-term philosophy grounded in buying stock in companies that are undervalued on the market and hanging on until their worth invariably surfaces–and shows how it is a reflection of his inner self.
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom
Author:
About: “Sound trading advice and lots of ideas you can use to develop your own trading methodology.”-Jack Schwager, author of Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards
This trading masterpiece has been fully updated to address all the concerns of today’s market environment. With substantial new material, this second edition features Tharp’s new 17-step trading model. Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom also addresses reward to risk multiples, as well as insightful new interviews with top traders, and features updated examples and charts.
Trading in the Zone : Maximizing Performance with Focus and Discipline
Author:
About: A trader’s emotional state is vital to being a successful investor. There are many psychological factors that can affect the decisions one makes in the course of a trading day. This book focuses on overcoming issues such as anxiety, fear, and over-ambition so that traders can become more focused and be more successful-in other words, enter the zone-and stay in it as long as possible.
Best trading psychology books
There are two author that I loved to read: Brett Steenbarger and A. Kiev. Here you will find their and others books about trading psychology that I really recommend to read!
The Psychology of Risk: Mastering Market Uncertainty
Author: Ari Kiev
About: One of the financial world’s most respected experts on the psychology of risk provides a revolutionary risk management model.
Over the past three decades investors have adopted all varieties of complex quantitative systems for quantifying and managing risk. Yet, sophisticated investors and money managers continue to suffer record losses in today’s increasingly volatile markets. This book bridges the gap between investor psychology and quantitative risk management with a revolutionary risk management program that virtually any trader or investor can easily adapt to their goals and personalities. Using numerous fascinating real-life case studies, Dr. Kiev illustrates the various psychological and emotional traps to which even the savviest investors can fall victim. He develops a dynamic new risk management model that combines quantitative models and money management techniques. He also provides rigorous guidelines that will help readers answer such crucial questions as: How much should I trade? How much risk can I handle? and When should I get out?
The Disciplined Trader: Developing Winning Attitudes
Author:
About: One of the first books to address the psychological nature of howsuccessful traders think ~ The Disciplined Trader™is now an industryclassic. In this groundbreaking work published in 1990 ~Douglas examines the causes as to why most traders cannot raise and keep their equity on a consistent basis ~ and brings the reader to practical and unique conclusions as to how to go about changing any limitingmindset. The trader is taken through a step-by-step process to breakthrough those queries ~ and begin to understand that their very thoughts may be limiting their ability to accumulate and succeed at trading.
Trading Psychology 2.0: From Best Practices to Best Processes (Wiley Trading)
Author:
About: Trading Psychology 2.0 is a comprehensive guide to applying the science of psychology to the art of trading. Veteran trading psychologist and bestselling author Brett Steenbarger offers critical advice and proven techniques to help interested traders better understand the markets, with practical takeaways that can be implemented immediately. Academic research is presented in an accessible, understandable, engaging way that makes it relevant for practical traders, and examples, illustrations, and case studies bring the ideas and techniques to life. Interactive features keep readers engaged and involved, including a blog offering ever-expanding content, and a Twitter feed for quick tips. Contributions from market bloggers, authors, and experts bring fresh perspectives to the topic, and Steenbarger draws upon his own experience in psychology and statistical modeling as an active trader to offer insight into the practical aspect of trading psychology.
The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist
Author:
About: “A great book! Simply written, motivational with unique content that leads any trader, novice or experienced, along the path of self-coaching. This is by far Dr. Steenbarger’s best book and a must-have addition to any trader’s bookshelf. I’ll certainly be recommending it to all my friends.”
—Ray BarrosCEO, Ray Barros Trading Group
“Dr. Steenbarger has been helping traders help themselves for many years. Simply put, this book is a must-read for anyone who desires to achieve great success in the market.”
—Charles E. KirkThe Kirk Report
Enhancing Trader Performance: Proven Strategies From the Cutting Edge of Trading Psychology
Author:
About: Through his own trading experiences and those of individuals he has mentored, Dr. Brett Steenbarger is familiar with the challenges that traders face and the performance and psychological strategies that can meet those challenges. In Enhancing Trader Performance, Steenbarger shows you how to transform talent into trading skill through a structured process of expertise development and reveals how this approach can help you achieve market mastery.
Come Into My Trading Room: A Complete Guide to Trading
Author: Alexander Elder
About:
In Come Into My Trading Room, noted trader and author Dr. Alexander Elder returns to expand far beyond the three M’s (Mind, Method, and Money) of his bestselling Trading for a Living. Shifting focus from technical analysis to the overall management of a trader’s money, time, and strategy, Dr. Elder takes readers from the fundamentals to the secrets of being a successful trader–identifying new, little known indicators that can lead to huge profits.
Come Into My Trading Room educates the novice and fortifies the professional through expert advice and proven trading methodologies. This comprehensive trading guide provides a complete introduction to the essentials of successful trading; a fresh look at the three M’s, including a proven, step-by-step money management strategy; and an in-depth look at organizing your trading time. Come Into My Trading Room reviews the basics of trading stocks, futures, and options as well as crucial psychological tactics for discipline and organization—with the goal of turning anyone into a complete and successful trader.
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Author: Charles Duhigg
About: In The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize–winning business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. Distilling vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives that take us from the boardrooms of Procter & Gamble to sidelines of the NFL to the front lines of the civil rights movement, Duhigg presents a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential. At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. As Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.
2 Comments
Great books! However one mistake: The Reminiscences of a Stock Operator’s description is inaccurate.
Good catch. Thanks!