3 BEST Books on Day Trading

3 BEST Books on Day Trading 463

I wonder how you’re feeling as you dive deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole of day trading for profit.

You may be feeling anxious, disappointed that you’re not where you thought you’d be by now, perhaps overwhelmed by all the information that’s out there, or maybe just eager and thirsty for knowledge that can help you focus on what you need to do to achieve your goals.

I want to share with you some resources that can help appease all of these feelings and leave you with a more structured conception of what it takes to become a profitable trader.

–But first – If you don’t know my story, I’m a Ph.D. student in the field of business and entrepreneurship, and I first taught myself how to day trade after developing a chronic illness and needing to look for ways to make money from home. After two years of lots of failure, persistence, and reflection on what I was doing, I was able to achieve profitability with day trading Forex. So a big part of what helped me break gravity and get into a streak of profitability involved consuming a ton of content on day trading and performance mindset.

Now, while I definitely learned a lot from YouTube, a big portion of what actually helped me to organize my own trading system and strategies involved reading copious books on these subjects. I believe that reading books helped me understand trading in a structured way and watching youtube was useful for filling any holes in that education and also finding inspiration in others’ stories of success.

So today, I’m going to share with you three of the most powerful and enlightening books about how to day trade, be it with Forex, Stocks, or Crypto – and become profitable by creating your own system and honing your discipline.

What all of these books have in common is that they’re written for beginners, they’re very well structured by breaking each component down into bite-sized bits, and tend to be all-encompassing in their discussion of what makes for profitability.

I’m also going to share with you a bonus book that has been the greatest catalyst in not only my trading progress but other roles in my life, such as pursuing a Ph.D. and starting a business, so be sure to stick around to the end to find out more.

Alright, let’s dive in!

3 BEST Beginner Books on Day Trading

1) “Come Into My Trading Room” – Alexander Elder

The first book on this list is actually the first book I ever read about day trading.

At the time, I was looking to learn to day trade stocks, but I managed to find some good books that outline a generalized approach to trading any market, including Forex. So Alexander Elder’s “Come Into My Trading Room,” was the best possible resource for my virgin day trader brain to become intimate with and develop an idea of what a well-structured routine and system could look like.

In this book, Elder talks about the 3 crucial elements of day trading success which involve what he calls the 3 M’s: Mind. Method, and Money Management.

Notice that Elder first discusses your trading mindset before even talking about strategies and risk management. Elder and I both encourage you to take your trading psychology and discipline very seriously and treat this aspect of your trading with the same level of interest and study as you would technical analysis or building a strategy.

In this book, he also talks about practical elements of trading, such as selecting the right equipment, how to keep a trading journal and equity log, and matters of position sizing and technical analysis. This book was such a boon to creating a map in my mind as to what I needed to do to get started and create an organized system to a trading routine and learning how to develop my own discipline.

2) “High Probability Trading” – Marcel Link

The second book on this list is similar to the first, as it’s also a general guide to trading, but spends more time focusing on basic technical analysis and important components of a strategy, such as determining entry and exits.

“High Probability Trading” by Marcel Link is a fantastic read if you want to learn more about technical analysis without getting overwhelmed, as many other traditional recommendations for books on technical analysis tend to be very dense and written in somewhat droll language.

He also explains what makes for high probability trades, such as with having a good reason for the trade when you see a confluence of positive signals and being able to identify what are bad reasons for a trade, such as with feeding an impulsive desire to jump in on a fast movement in the market. Like Elder, he also talks about the crucial components of trading with discipline, keeping an organized trading routine, and how to manage your funds.

3) “The Daily Trading Coach” – Brett N. Steenbarger

The third book on this list is specifically about trading psychology. “The Daily Trading Coach” by Brett N. Steenbarger is a useful resource that can be read like a day-by-day book since it’s broken down into 101 lessons about developing your discipline and managing your emotions.

I read this by reading two lessons a day, and it was incredibly useful for developing a better awareness of what I was doing that was causing so much failure and how I could turn that around by implementing specific habits and exercises to locate and correct the bad behavior. 

The Daily Trading Coach Brett SteenbargerSo these three books are a great place to start if you’re looking to either begin your day trading career or finally achieve some of your long-standing trading goals. I can’t emphasize enough that reading is a trading edge if you can make it a habit. You’re going to find much more thoughtful and well-structured advice from a book than a mishmash of youtube videos you find online.

Trust me, regularly reading a book on day trading is a necessary part of your trading education and long-term success. If you’d like a list of trading books I recommend every day trader to read in order to get profitable and build the life of your dreams, be sure to download my FREE list of study resources!

Now, before we go, I want to mention one more book that gets ~a little meta~ and can help you think about how structuring your trading system is part of a bigger plan for your overall life goals and success.

BONUS: High Performance Habits – Brendon Burchard

The book “High Performance Habits” by Brendon Burchard is probably the most high-leveraging book I’ve ever read and re-read time and again.

When I read this book and implement its advice and exercises, my entire life improves for the better, including my trading progress. Burchard talks about habits involved with six key areas of clarity, energy, productivity, necessity, influence, and courage, which combined make for a life that is effective, efficient, and meaningful.

I imagine day trading for you isn’t the end goal.  There are powerful things you want to do with the discipline and confidence you develop, as well as the money you make. Reading the “High Performance Habits” can help you discover what that looks like and how to use your trading to get to a new level.

So I hope you found value in this lesson – please let me know by commenting below if there’s anything you’d like to learn more about these books and what I’ve learned by reading them. I hope you all have a successful trading week ahead, and I wish the best of strength and luck. Take care!

3 Actions That Lead to Becoming Consistently Profitable with Day Trading

3 Actions That Lead to Becoming Consistently Profitable with Day Trading 6481

After two years of day trading, I’ve finally achieved consistent profitability with scalping Forex markets and have gone on to pass prop trading challenges.

If you’ve dipped your toe into the day trading lifestyle, then you probably already know just how difficult it can be.

Most beginners need to just focus on learning the basics of technical analysis and trading psychology.

But once you can read charts and find a strategy that matches your personality, I don’t believe the way to get to profitability is to find even more information about technical analysis.

Instead, I think all of your issues with trading revolve around lacking trading discipline.

Once I had this epiphany, I changed my game plan and spent more time figuring out ways I could redirect my mindset and control my trading behaviors.

There were a few key things that I did that finally led me to become consistently profitable. 

Today I’m going to share with you three things that likely led to this big shift in my performance. Of the three, the last one I will share with you was probably the most beneficial of them all so be sure to stick around to the end to find out one of the easiest things you can do daily to get yourself profitable. 

So, ready to dive in?

3 Actions That Lead to Becoming Consistently Profitable

1) Take ONE Good Trade Per Day

One of the first big actions I took that got this profitability ball rolling was to stop trading multiple times a day and just focus on taking one good trade a day.

At that time, I was struggling with following my stop loss and take profit rules. I would frequently shift my stop-loss if the price got too close because I was afraid of losing on a trade that could turn around. With every trade I took during the day I increased the odds of breaking my trading rules.3 actions to become consistently profitable

So I reviewed the strategy that I was using, gave it a backtest to see if it would be profitable if I only took one signal instead of the three or four I would usually get, and sure enough, it was!

Thus, for about a month, I focused on taking one perfect trade a day.

During this time, I wasn’t worried about the money, I just wanted to finally know I could trust myself to follow my rules.

If scalping or day trading is feeling overwhelming, maybe dial it back a bit and see if you can take just one good trade a day or even per week before trying to ramp up the intensity again.

2) Create a Reward System for Following Your Trading Rules

The next important change that I made was to implement a reward system for performing the rules of my mechanical strategy. So when I followed my strategy rules, whether that meant winning or taking my stop losses, I would reward myself.

I go into how I did this with more depth in the Disciplined FX Scalping Course, but here I’ll summarize and say that I made sure that I reserved special treats for the end of my trading session which resulted in me following all of my trading rules. This helped to direct my focus away from the account balance and towards developing trading discipline.

There’s a saying in day trading that if you forget about the money and just focus on trading well, the money will eventually come on its own. 

Lastly, there was one more big shift I made that was probably the most powerful trick I’ve ever used to stop making trading mistakes and finally get into profit.

Now, I’m going to share this with you but before I do so, I want you to make a promise to yourself that you’ll give it a shot. I’m absolutely serious when I say that this will be the habit that helps you become profitable.

3) Track the Cost of Your Mistakes

The most important action I took to change my trading was to track how much my trades were costing me.

Some of you may be familiar with this kind of habit like when keeping track of your expenses when you want to get out of debt, sticking to a budget, or saving for a big purchase. When you record every one of your expenses, you start to notice where your money is going and can make a conscientious effort to cut back on the areas you splurge most, such as buying takeout too often or paying too much for a lofty car payment.3 actions to become consistently profitable

Because the real issue isn’t that you’re willfully losing money.

It’s not like you’re going outside and dropping money on the ground.

It’s certain actions and choices that you’re making which lead to loss over time.

This is true of trading as well. We need to be able to track and find out which behaviors are costing us the most money so we can prioritize what to improve first.

So to track how much my mistakes were costing me, every time I made a mistake, I would write on my trading log spreadsheet what mistake was made and how much it cost. If my mistake was pulling a winning trade too soon, I would write how much money I missed out on between where I exited and where my planned take profit was.

If I took a trade that wasn’t part of my signal criteria, then I would record what was lost. If I made money on any of these mistakes, however,  I would just record the mistake cost as $0. This helped me generate some data about my mistakes.

Each week I would look over my trades and calculate how much my mistakes cost me in total, as well as what feelings or impulsive behaviors were causing the most damage. 

After about a month of doing this, I started making money in the markets with the same strategy I was using while I was still consistently losing money.

Sometimes all it takes to turn your life around is a big epiphany combined with simple action. Again, if this is the first time you’re hearing about tracking the cost of your mistakes, I highly recommend giving this practice a shot. Your brokerage account will thank you.

That’s it for today folks, I wish you the best of strength and luck and I’ll see you out there in the markets!

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