Several reviewers have claimed that this book does not contain actionable advice. I understand the complaint, the only specific recommendations are generalities like keep a journal, practice yoga and meditation, take satisfaction in small losses, learn from successful practitioners and join a support group for traders. In particular, this book leaves out the very important point that you need some kind of an edge. Your inner voice must speak the truth. While this part is easier than most people think, there are lots of well-known, published techniques to get an edge, it cannot be ignored. My guess is 80% of people fail at trading because they never acquire one. The author's advice is reserved for the other 20%.
Among that group, I agree with the author that failure usually comes from wanting something other than success. Many people want to boast about bold, clever trades. That's an expensive hobby. Focusing on what other people will think steers you down losing paths. The author blames the American educational system for turning out people who value being smart and giving the answer the teacher wants to hear over accomplishing goals and respecting their own idiosyncratic intelligence. I think it's something deeper. Good trading is disruptive. Humans are socialized not to trade well, which is one of the main reasons simple trading techniques work.
The value of this book is its clarity and honesty. It's not an ABC of what to do, it's an expertly-crafted vision of what to be. Someone who wants an ABC has already missed the point. The author tells you how to listen to your inner voice, he's not selling a transcript of what your inner voice says.
The book uses stories about trading and life so show what trading is. If you don't understand that, you cannot make money consistently enough for success. Much more important, you will not be happy even if you do make money.
A trading room is not the place to acquire self-confidence or public acclaim. Trading is not a skill you acquire that once you have it generates money effortlessly. A profitable trade does not quiet your inner demons or make you a better human being. Unless you have rigorous clarity about those things you should find a safer occupation than trader. This book makes these points gently and indirectly, but powerfully nonetheless.
To the extent the author does venture into specifics, he's not always accurate. He praises yoga and meditation, and advises getting away from distractions to hear your inner voice. That's great advice for some people. But I think it's equally possible to find your center in competition, say a poker game or race. Insight can come from immersing yourself with a crowd at a concert or party. Calling your inner voice "quiet" is only a metaphor. You can hear it equally well in a crowd of frenzied, yelling traders as in a sensory deprivation tank, and as clearly when you're pushing yourself to the limit as when you are completely relaxed in an ashram.
He repeatedly emphasizes the important of taking lots of small losses and relying on less frequent but larger gains to generate long-term profit. That is usually right in trading, but it's not a universal rule. There are good strategies that do the reverse, say making 1% every month, except every couple of years losing 10%. The key is to know the type of bet you're making and not to try to force it into the wrong distribution, and not to acquire investors who don't understand your game. The author is very critical of leverage. Leverage is dangerous, of course, but it is essential to many good strategies. In fact, a lot of market opportunities are created by other people's leverage aversion.
The most blatant error is his description of quant traders. He is precise and accurate about traders he knows personally, but he admits his account of quants came from
Scott Patterson's book. Unfortunately, he read this too quickly and confuses events from four days in August 2007, which inflicted unexpectedly large but not crippling losses on many quant traders (losses that were quickly recouped), with later events during the financial crisis that happened to different traders. He asserts incorrectly and with no support that quants stuck blindly to models, unable to conceive that the market disagreed. There may be some people who do this, but the author names specific quant traders who have lasted far too long and acquired far too much success to be accused of this rookie error. Among several other howlers in these regrettable three pages, quants are accused of holding illiquid instruments and of failing to react to increases in market volatility. Quants generally want a good price history, which means they tend to trade the most liquid things: equities and listed futures. And a quant thinks about a bet size in volatility terms. Therefore, when market volatility increases, most quants automatically scale back their position sizes in proportion. They don't even think about it as cutting positions. It is qualitative investors like the author who are far more likely to be found in illiquid positions, and sizing in constant notional terms (number of contracts or dollars) rather than volatility. Quants are prone to certain kinds of mistakes, but not these mistakes.
Errors and inaccuracies aside, this is a great book for novice and experienced traders. Soaking up its wisdom distilled from experience and introspection will help you become more successful. And that's true even if it doesn't make you a penny.
