Book Review

Finished that book I mentioned before ‘The disciplined trader’, and I’m going to give it a five out of ten.

It started off very promising and it was clear that the author had ‘been there, done that’ with regard to busting banks, losing money and more. I find it refreshing to read a book by a real trader because with some books, you get the feeling that the author doesn’t really trade all that much. This guy lost his car, family and gaff so I was looking forward to reading about his road to recovery and how he pulled himself together and became a disciplined, successful trader. We don’t really get to hear that though.

From about mid-way through the book, he looks into the psychological side of trading but for me, this is where it comes up short. He talks about the memory and energy etc, but gives no real scientific examples or evidence for what he is saying. It gets a bit waffly to be honest, and comes across as one of those self-help power of positive thinking type of books – with no real facts, evidence, or examples to support what he is saying.  I do realise that the book was written nearly two decades ago so things like neuroscience and the study of the brain were in their infancy. However, after a while, I found myself ‘scanning’ through the book trying to get through it and get past the waffle.

In the last couple of chapters, he talks about trading and gives some examples of strategies which is fairly interesting and salvages the book somewhat. Perhaps the book needs to be updated for the computer age.  It’s probably worth a read but it’s not one of my top ten anyway.