Enhancing Trader Performance: Proven Strategies From the Cutting Edge of Trading Psychology (Wiley Trading) - Hardcover

Steenbarger, Brett N.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470038667 ISBN 13: 9780470038666

Verlag: Wiley, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

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 Enhancing Trader Performance, Steenbarger shows you how to transform talent into trading skill through a structured process of expertise development and reveals how this approach can help you achieve market mastery.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

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.

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Praise for Enhancing Trader Performance

"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 Performance shows 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

Aus dem Klappentext

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 thattraders 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 tradingcompetence 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

When you enhance your performance as a trader, you replace a small piece of randomness with intention. This enables you to make more informed trading decisions as you make your way through today's dynamic markets. Filled with in-depth insights, practical advice, solid research, and detailed examples, Enhancing Trader Performance offers an innovative approach to market mastery.

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Enhancing Trader Performance

Proven Strategies From the Cutting Edge of Trading PsychologyBy Brett N. Steenbarger

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2006 Brett N. Steenbarger
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-03866-6

Chapter One

Where Expertise Begins

The Performance Niche

I'm a big believer in starting with high standards and raising them. We make progress only when we push ourselves to the highest level. -Dan Gable

He was cut from his team in his sophomore year of high school. Any hopes of obtaining a college scholarship were quickly receding. Most aspiring athletes would take their lumps, join a local league or intramural squad, and move on with their lives. Michael Jordan, however, was not like most young athletes. He responded to the cut by practicing day after day. When he felt too tired to continue, he forced himself to recall his cut from the team and drove himself harder. Two years later, he was a McDonald's All-American and the MVP of the McDonald's game. The year after that, he hit the game-winning shot for the University of North Carolina in the NCAA finals. By the time his NBA career ended, Jordan had made an astonishing 25 game-winning shots, perhaps none as memorable as the jumper he nailed against Utah on June 14, 1998. With 5.2 seconds left and no one in the house doubting who would take the last shot, he sealed his sixth championship for the Chicago Bulls.

Michael Jordan was an elite performer, one of many we will encounter in this book. Yet Michael Jordan was not always Michael Jordan. His rise from high school reject to college star was dramatic, but not stellar. He never averaged more than 20 points per game during his college career and was selected third in 1984's NBA draft. All signs pointed to stardom, but not superstardom. Nonetheless, Michael Jordan-along with a small handful of other athletes-stands today as a towering symbol of expert performance.

What makes expert performers tick? How are they different from average performers? Is expertise the result of natural, inborn talent, or can it be cultivated? And, most important of all, what can we learn about trading expertise by studying expert performance in other fields? In this book, we will find common factors that contribute to the success of chess experts, Olympic athletes, world-class performing artists, and successful traders. One of those factors is finding a performance niche: a specific activity that is most likely to capitalize on your talents and interests. Michael Jordan had a niche in basketball; he did not find one in baseball. Dan Gable started his athletic career as an undistinguished swimmer, later to discover his own world-class talent as a wrestler-and then as a wrestling coach. Discovering your trading niche may well make the difference between a hall-of-fame trading career and a disappointing one that never quite makes prime time. Sadly, most traders stumble into their markets and trading styles, never to discover where their opportunities might truly lie.

A TALE OF TWO TRADERS

Al and Mick were two short-term traders at a professional trading firm. Both traded the electronic Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 (ES) E-mini futures contract, and both gave me carte blanche to stand by their screens during market hours so that I could help them with their trading.

I began the day watching Al. The market was trading in a narrow range early in the morning after an attempted rally fizzled. The average price from the day before was about three points below the market's current level, and I had a strong sense (based on my historical studies) that we would take out that average price. Al, Mick, and a handful of other traders had met with me before the trade, and we discussed using the likelihood of the market hitting that level as a potential trade idea. Nevertheless, Al was leaning to the long side. I was skeptical, but decided not to press the point.

As the market ground lower and Al's position went into the red, he shook his head in recognition of his error. Very soon afterward, however, he stopped himself out of the position and flipped to the short side. He was able to pick up a few ticks before the market reversed on him once again. The choppy action continued through the morning, with a mild downward drift. Al was patient, but not making much money for the day. He took a break at lunchtime and expressed to me his hope that the afternoon trade would pick up. Throughout the morning he maintained his composure and held his own in a difficult trade. He expressed optimism that taking a lunch break and clearing his head would help him focus through the afternoon and take advantage of opportunity. Never once did he lose his composure or his positive attitude.

When I moved over to Mick, however, it was a very different story. Mick also tried to play the market's upside and found his position underwater. Enraged, he held onto the position past his stop point, only to see his losses expand. My cautionary comment to Mick was "If your morning losses are small enough, you'll have a fighting shot to make them up in the afternoon." He eventually did exit the position, but refused to take a break at midday. He reviewed every piece of market data from the morning, replaying his bad decisions. All the while he shifted in his chair, pounded the table, raised his voice, and otherwise expressed his frustration. He became particularly agitated when he reviewed the morning trade on his videorecorder. "I can't believe I was so stupid," he fumed. He then proceeded to tell me five things he should have seen in the market to tell him we were going lower. Come hell or high water, he practically shouted, he was going to focus on those five things in the afternoon.

Al and Mick: two very different traders. One of them made a high five-figure sum during the afternoon; the other one struggled to break even all day.

One was an expert trader, the other was struggling.

Al kept himself emotionally balanced, taking liberal time away from the screen after setbacks. He honored his stops religiously and didn't become irate at losses. He consistently expressed optimism over his development and a love of trading.

Mick was anything but balanced, taking losses almost as personal affronts. He periodically violated his risk management guidelines and could not break from the markets until he had rehashed all his mistakes and fumed over each. At such times, he spoke of the market and himself with equal derision.

Most of the trading psychology books you'd read would give the trading edge to Al, the more disciplined, less emotional performer. But Al, the novice, never did succeed at trading. Mick was-and remains-a multimillion-dollar performer. The experience of working with many Micks and Als-and seeing common wisdom about trading success shot down time and again-convinced me to write this book.

THE CORNERSTONE OF EXPERTISE

No doubt, there's a bit of the young Michael Jordan in Mick. He doesn't accept defeat lightly, and he uses losses to drive himself forward. That is characteristic of elite performers, we shall learn, but there's something even more basic that distinguished Mick from Al. In fact, it's so basic that K. Anders Ericsson, perhaps the most prolific researcher in the field of performance, considers it the cornerstone of expertise.

Think of the difference between Al and Mick as...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Wiley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0470038667
• ISBN 13: 9780470038666
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Wiley-VCH GmbH; product_safety@wiley.com; ; Boschstrasse 12; Weinheim; 69469; Deutschland