• The Disciplined Trader

• Developing Winning Attitudes

• by Mark Douglas

Reviews

• As a teacher of trading principles I was hoping that this book could be added to my list of recommended titles as a complement to the current respected classics in the area of psychology of trading. The book is divided into 4 sections and we are promised a structured approach to developing a winning attitude. The introductory chapters lay down the reasons why the author wrote the book and the need for a new way of thinking about markets, this seemed to be an encouraging foretaste for the rest of the book, even if the points made are not new to the experienced trader. The next section attempts to explain the nature of the trading market from a psychological perspective. Some valid points are made here, but I am beginning to detect a style of elongated text and my concern is how well a beginning/ intermediate trader will be able to decipher the relevant facts. Part 3 is where we are to “Build a framework for understanding ourselves” It is here that the book starts to descend like the author’s trading capital in his first experience of trading. The text becomes indulgent psychobabble that indicates an amateurish understanding of psychology, philosophy and even physics. The author’s comments are made as though he is being profound when in fact he comes across as being patronising and unskilled. He doesn’t seem to notice when he is repeating himself and has a habit of starting paragraphs with “Now, ……” This just becomes an added irritation and when the book was already on shaky ground, I lose complete respect for it. His use of English (not that I would normally mind this in a book about trading) is also poor. It is especially critical to make points clear, concise and unambiguous in a book of this nature, as the subject matter is difficult to quantify. However, we are treated instead to comments such as “Energy travels at an incredibly high rate of speed….” and “Now, at the most basic level, we create experiences for ourselves by the mere fact that we exist” and in trying to discuss negative emotions “Regardless of whether we were acting as a force on the environment (behaviour motivated by our sense of curiosity) and got an unexpected or unintended painful reaction, or the environment initiated by ourselves (other than the fact that we exist), acted as a force on us in a way that resulted in pain, the formation will result in a negatively charged memory.” In other words if something bad happens to you, you remember it….you get the picture. It is only once you have waded through the nonsense that you arrive at part 4 titled “how to become a disciplined trader” why this couldn’t have been the start of the book I don’t know, but the author goes on to explain the “psychology of price movement”. Whilst the author states the book is neither Technically or Fundamentally analysis based, this part is an attempt to explain movements in price action, support, resistance, trends, reversals and contrary opinion theory, all without the aid of any diagrams or actually acknowledging it has anything to do with technical analysis. The result is confusing, unhelpful and is some instances incorrect. If you were to read this book, I would suggest you jump in at chapter 16 (page 201 out of 223) Here the text does become more lucid although the desire to provide drivel seems to be unavoidable. In order to help us take our trading signals from our trading system (assuming we want to do this) we are told to buy a trading system and follow the signals! We are given a list of 15 questions to “help us stay focussed” the parameters of which are not quantifiable and will totally confuse anyone who doesn’t understand trading. For example we are to focus on “how much strength” there is in the market and ask ourselves “ is momentum building?”. Using what measures and in reference to what? The book is not totally devoid of trading wisdom and any one who has a good understanding of trading will recognise where these points come in. If you can imagine a book of trading rules padded with bumpf and interspersed with dubious assumptions then you will be able to understand the challenge. If you don’t understand trading this book will confuse you. If you do, it won’t add anything new and will more likely annoy you. Alternatively, I would recommend a good book on Technical analysis (Murphy’s Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets or Edwards and Magee’s Technical Analysis of Stock Trends) to understand the basis for market price action, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (Edwin Lefevre) for trading psychology and to get a winning mindset I would read Mind of a Trader (Alpesh Patel) or a Market Wizards book (Jack Schwager). All these books have the added bonus of being well written and enjoyable to read.
  R Berkhout