Somehow, between writing for his own site, his TraderFeed Blog, TradingMarkets.com and various presentaions Dr. Steenbarger found the time to write a new book, Enhancing Trader Performance. I just got my hands on a copy and am looking forward to reading it. Dr. Brett wrote a little bit about the book yesterday in his post entitled 'Finding Your Performance Niche'. In that post he provided a link to a PDF of the first chapter of the book. So have at it.
More details about the book are below...
From the book jacket:
Trading is a performance discipline, and like Olympic athletes, elite military troops, and performing artists, traders can structure their development to achieve competence and expertise. 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 his first book, The Psychology of Trading, Dr. Steenbarger provided a framework for understanding and overcoming the mental obstacles to successful trading. Now, in Enhancing Trader Performance, he goes a step further and shows you how to transform talent into trading skill through a structured process of expertise development.
Straightforward and accessible, this comprehensive guide:
- Discusses the importance of finding an optimal fit between your trading talents and interests; the markets you trade; and the ways you trade those markets
- Explores how you can enter into a learning process that will cultivate your trading competence and expertise
- Introduces the concept of learning loops, which enable you to make progressive improvements in your trading methods
- Breaks down performance into three components -- mechanics, tactics, and strategy -- and examines the role of each in generating trading success
- Illustrates how you can coach yourself with practical cognitive and behavioral techniques that rapidly change problem patterns and build new, positive ways of thinking and behaving
PRAISE FOR Enhancing Trader Performance FROM THE BACK COVER
"Brett Steenbarger gives traders the best tool to improve their own trading: a look into themselves. By setting up a quantifiable, positive learning system, Brett allows anyone, from experienced fund managers to beginner traders, to maximize individual potential. -- Larry Connors, CEO, Tradingmarkets.com"Brett proves that mental toughness CAN be learned and hits the nail on the head when applying performance theory to trading! He shows how classic topics, such as the consistency and habits built from day-to-day routines to the importance of positive self-talk, can be applied to the abstract arena of the markets. Traders of all levels will be inspired by these strategies for performance enhancement in their journey towards mastery.
-- Linda Raschke, LBRGroup, Inc."Successful traders know that winning has less to do with technical knowledge and more to do with understanding yourself, pinpointing your strategy and process, and implementing it in a consistent, disciplined manner. Enhancing Trader Performanceshows that your personal success lies at the intersection of your talents, skills, and opportunities. Brett guides you toward identifying your talents, developing your skills, and applying both as opportunities arise. For anyone interested in improving their trading, reading this book may be one of the best trades you ever make.
-- Jim Dalton, trader, coauthor of Mind Over Markets and Markets in Profile, and Senior Vice President and Director (Retired), ICS Integrated Products and Research, UBS Financial Services Inc."The one statement in the book that stands out, 'You cannot have trading consistency if you do not have emotional consistency,' says it all. This book must be read, and reread, if you want to succeed in the trading arena.
-- Ken Wood, "Woodie" of www.woodiescciclub.com
AUTHOR BIO
BRETT N. STEENBARGER, PHD, is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and an active trader of the equity index markets. He has published over fifty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on topics related to brief therapy, and is the author of The Psychology of Trading, also published by Wiley. As Director of Trader Development for Kingstree Trading, LLC, in Chicago, Dr. Steenbarger has mentored numerous professional traders and coordinated the training of new traders.
Hey Mike,
I started reading the book the other day. About a third of the way through and all I can say is that it is a great book. Will be doing a review hopefully this weekend.
Seems a lot of people have got their copies. Amazon still hasn't sent mine. :-w
I thought this excerpt was great:
Many traders have problems with their discipline for the same reason that young men have trouble committing to relationships: They're just not ready. If you're having performance problems in trading, instead of berating yourself with exhortations about discipline, perhaps we should figure out the answer to this question: What experiences will help you move through your developmental process, so that you'll eventually want to make--even crave making--a disciplined commitment to your work.
Question for Michelle: How French taxes on investing and trading? Living in France sounds great - I am an EU citizen and can speak some French and could learn. But my vague impressions about the taxbill put me often even thinking about it much. Maybe I'm wrong?
Taxes do apply do any Trader in the EU region, but it can change a lot depending on the country your in.
I'm not informed about the Tax bill in France but for example in Portugal you get very low taxes compared to other countries. In many EU contries there is no such thing as a "professional trader".. at least in the tax laws ;)
Moorn,
French taxes on capital gains are actually reasonable, about 25%, regardless if they are short or long-term gains. Around 10% of that is for social security taxes. Income tax in France is very low, it is the social security tax that takes the bite. But of course, I do not need to purchase medical insurance (and therefore not taking on additional business expense as I would if I lived in America) as the French national health care system is one of the best in the world (one of the reasons why I would hate leaving France--it is that good).
The tax rate for capital gains can be considerably less than the comparable amount paid on income earned from a business or a job in France, though regardless of how small your capital gains are, you do pay taxes on them, while if your income from a regular job goes under the mininum tax bracket, you do not pay income tax.
And as for most capital gains, it is essentially a flat tax, when your capital gains increase, you are not placed in a higher tax bracket (and in France, the brackets can go rather high), though of course the total amount of tax you pay increases.
In France there is still the wealth tax. So that may be an additional tax. With the property boom, folks of relatively modest means, are now subject to the wealth tax because the value of their property is taken into account, so you got cash-poor folks in Bretagne paying wealth taxes.
But what is even more 'taxing' is the very unfavorable dollar-euro exchange rate at present. But, in the first several years of my trading, it was favorable, that is, it was like getting a 20% bonus on my earnings. Therefore that is just another aspect of doing business in one country and living in another country. The big european corporations also felt the sting too! But of course they hedge, and at this point, I have not really come up with a way of hedging the unfavorable exchange rate to my satisfaction.
France is notorious for how difficult it is for businesses to get started, because of the regidity of labor laws, high taxes, etc. The most successful French corporations like Renault, Danone, Loreal are so, because they conduct a huge amount of business outside France. In that light, if you are going to do a business, then daytrading is a wise choice in France, as it is not considered a business, so you are left alone. My husband, however, does run his own one-person business and he is constantly being beseiged with paperwork.
Ertai,
Portugal is a lovely country. I would not mind moving there!
Thanks Michelle - that is interesting - I will look into this more - though probably not practical any time soon. I live in the US now but was born in England. Also lived in Australia (and Israel).
My review of Dr. Steenbarger's new book is up on my blog...bottom line...great book.
Steven, thanks for the heads-up regarding your excellent review of Dr. Steenbarger latest book.
I'll have to put that one on my to-get list! \:d/
I've found Marcel Link's "High Probability Trading" to be a classic (for myself) he also talks about the mental disipline quite a bit. Although, this he doesn't focus on it directly like this book does.
I'm just reading Brett's web-site at the moment but will hopefully buy his books when the time is right.
So much of what Brett says is right on the money. I have found the hard part to be finding the the 'will' to execute like a winner. I used to disregard the bahvioural component of trading, and it has led to my downfall.