“If there was easy money lying around, no one would be forcing it it into your pockets.” – Jesse Livermore
There is so much garbage out there concerning trading online and the temptation for easy money that many new traders are lured into childish beliefs about getting rich quick, following a guru that can predict the future, or confusing a salesman for a trader. Contrary to popular belief, trading is not about picks, predictions, or personal gurus. Trading is really about entry signals with an edge, following price action, and learning to trade a system that fits who you are as a trader. Real long term profitable trading is about, risk management, robust trading systems, and mental and emotional discipline. I would not trust anyone that did not have those three things at the core of their trading. Here is the right reading path for a new trader to follow to avoid all the hype, foolishness, con-artists, and childishness that arises from ignorance of a solid understanding of the subject of trading in the real world in real time.
Trade Like a Casino: Find Your Edge, Manage Risk, and Win Like the House (Wiley Trading) “If we are properly managing the risk and adhering to a positive expectancy model, the act of trading a position should be boring.” – Richard Weissman
Trading Without Gambling: Develop a Game Plan for Ultimate Trading Success “If all your decisions were made during nonmarket hours with timing and execution being your main concern during market hours, you will dramatically increase your chances of success.” – Marcel Link
Trend Following (Updated Edition): Learn to Make Millions in Up or Down Markets “Trend followers are the group of technical traders who use reactive technical analysis. Instead of trying to predict a market direction, their strategy is to react to the market’s movements whenever they occur. This enables them to focus on the market’s actual moves and not get emotionally involved with trying to predict direction or duration.” – Michael Covel
Market Wizards, Updated: Interviews With Top Traders “The most important rule of trading is to play great defense, not great offense.” & “Don’t focus on making money; focus on protecting what you have.” – Market Wizards
Come Into My Trading Room: A Complete Guide to Trading “You enter a trade, three factors must be crystal clear in your mind-where to get in, where to take profits, and where to bail out in case of an emergency. Daydreaming about profits will not make you rich. You must decide in advance where you’ll take your winnings off the table or cut and run if the market turns against you” – Alexander Elder
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom “Most successful speculators have success rates of 35 to 50 percent. They are not successful because they predict prices well. They are successful because the size of their profitable trades far exceeds the size of their losses. This requires tremendous internal control.” – Van Tharp
The Disciplined Trader: Developing Winning Attitudes “The difference is that the traders who can make money consistently on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis approach trading from the perspective of a mental discipline. When asked for their secrets of success, they categorically state that they didn’t achieve any measure of consistency in accumulating wealth from trading until they learned self-discipline, emotional control, and the ability to change their minds to flow with the markets.” – Mark Douglas
High probability trading : take the steps to become a successful trader “Trades that have the highest probability of working are usually in the direction of the trend; fighting the trend means fighting the market’s momentum. A trend is in place for a reason: The market participants as a whole believe that the market should be headed in that direction.” – Marcel Link
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets “That which came with the help of luck could be taken away by luck (and often rapidly and unexpectedly at that). The flipside, which deserves to be considered as well (in fact it is even more of our concern), is that things that come with little help from luck are more resistant to randomness.” – N.N. Taleb
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder “Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. Anything that has more upside than downside from random events (or certain shocks) is antifragile; the reverse is fragile.” – N.N. Taleb