The Trading Athlete: Winning the Mental Game of Online Trading [Hardcover]

Shane Murphy (Author), Doug Hirschhorn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471418706 | ISBN-13: 978-0471418702 | Publication Date: August 17, 2001 | Edition: 1

"The best traders in the world know that being mentally prepared is absolutely essential to compete in today's markets. Without a firm understanding of the psychology of trading, even the best stock picker will fail. The Trading Athlete gives specific instruction on how new and seasoned traders can keep themselves at the top of their mental game."-Tim Bourquin, Cofounder, TraderInterivews.com and The Online Trading Expo

"This book is a great training camp for online traders. Doug and Shane will provide the knowledge and motivation to help you become a successful trader."-Jonathan Markowitz, Partner, SMW Trading Co., Inc.

Traders, just like athletes, face tremendous pressure, stress, and expectations that would crush the ordinary, unprepared individual. The Trading Athlete utilizes sport psychology strategies to provide you with the knowledge, confidence, and discipline needed to succeed and profit in the sink-or-swim world of online trading.

Using real-world examples of athletes and online traders, this book will help you reach the peak of your online trading performance with in-depth analysis of:
* Building confidence in good times and bad
* Handling losses by examining your methods
* Focusing and maintaining concentration
* Playing the game one trade at a time


Through sport psychology strategies exemplified by John Elway, Arthur Ashe, and other athletes, you will finally begin to trade and survive in the big leagues.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Traders, just like athletes, constantly deal with unrelenting pressure, performance slumps, confidence issues, and changing motivational factors. This is why the psychology of elite athletes has translated so effectively to that of the online trader.

In The Trading Athlete, sport psychologist Shane Murphy and trading coach/former Division I athlete Doug Hirschhorn take the strategies of sport psychology and apply them to the arena of online trading. This one-of-a-kind play book will give you the confidence and discipline needed to build a profitable, long-term career as a "Trading Athlete."

Apply the mental strategies of elite athletes to your online trading game plan by writing a mission statement, setting effective goals, and maintaining confidence through body language. As you continue to trade and obstacles arise, this book provides the tools necessary to overcome the bad days, weeks, and even months that come with the territory. "Trading Athlete" strategies for difficult times include:

• Maintain a Positive Trading Attitude (PTA)
• Use "self-talk" to get back on track
• Avoid a "trade for revenge" strategy

Peppered with consulting stories of online traders and sport psychology strategies that work, this book will teach you how to deal with pressure, reduce stress, and stay focused as you engage in the "game" of online trading. Bounce back mentally from losses as John McEnroe did after Bjorn Bjorg defeated him in the 1980 finals of Wimbledon. McEnroe faced his failures, overcame them, and beat Bjorg in the finals of Wimbledon the very next year. Carry the expectations of a nation (or a company/family in a trader’s case) as Olympic sprinter Cathy Freeman did in 2000 by "tuning in" and staying focused on the task at hand. You don’t have to play sports to understand the principles behind this unique trading guide. All you need is the desire to put yourself in the best possible position to win.

From the Back Cover

"The best traders in the world know that being mentally prepared is absolutely essential to compete in today’s markets. Without a firm understanding of the psychology of trading, even the best stock picker will fail. The Trading Athlete gives specific instruction on how new and seasoned traders can keep themselves at the top of their mental game."–Tim Bourquin, Cofounder, TraderInterivews.com and The Online Trading Expo

"This book is a great training camp for online traders. Doug and Shane will provide the knowledge and motivation to help you become a successful trader."–Jonathan Markowitz, Partner, SMW Trading Co., Inc.

Traders, just like athletes, face tremendous pressure, stress, and expectations that would crush the ordinary, unprepared individual. The Trading Athlete utilizes sport psychology strategies to provide you with the knowledge, confidence, and discipline needed to succeed and profit in the sink-or-swim world of online trading.

Using real-world examples of athletes and online traders, this book will help you reach the peak of your online trading performance with in-depth analysis of:

• Building confidence in good times and bad
• Handling losses by examining your methods
• Focusing and maintaining concentration
• Playing the game one trade at a time

Through sport psychology strategies exemplified by John Elway, Arthur Ashe, and other athletes, you will finally begin to trade and survive in the big leagues.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (August 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471418706
• ISBN-13: 978-0471418702
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trader, Know Thyself, April 15, 2002

By 

L. Masonson (Monroe, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Trading Athlete: Winning the Mental Game of Online Trading (Hardcover)

For both new and experienced traders, The Trading Athlete is a welcome addition to the subject of understanding the importance of trading psychology. Trading is a very difficult profession if you are not mentally prepared. By using sports analogies and comparing the athlete to the trader, the authors provide an easy-to-understand approach to the subject matter. Having traded equities and futures for the past eight years, I've concluded that conquering trading psychology is 90% of the battle to becoming a consistent and profitable trader. Trading psychology is such a critical aspect of trading that I included two chapters on the subject in my book Day Trading on the Edge: A Look Before You Leap Guide to Extreme Investing.

The authors, a sports psychologist and online trader (with prior trading experience at the CME and CBOT, and currently a trading coach) have produced a clearly written, easy-to-read book that supplements books by Dr. Alexander Elder, Ari Kiev, and Mark Douglas among the best books on trading psychology.

The major subjects covered in this book include:
- Mental keys
-Confidence building and dealing with failure
-How to handle losses
-Replacing negative thinking with productivity
-Handling pressure
-Why trading for revenge is a disaster
-How to overcome fear and prevent panic
-How to concentrate
-Enjoying your success

Each chapter is sprinkled with appropriate quotes that bring home the key points.

The Trading Athlete provides a self-evaluation form covering: goal setting, confidence, positive trading attitude, energizing, anger management, pressure, concentration, and flow. It also provides actual relaxation strategies to reduce stress

Also included in an appendix is a summary of the key points (4-10 or more) of each chapter. There are also very useful worksheets that can be used to record your own mission statement including your strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Additional worksheets are provided for recording your trading rules, goals for the week, month and year with checklists to determine if you are meeting them. Another worksheet covers a weekly performance log for recording each trade, its outcome and your comments about it.

In summary, the Trading Athlete, if read carefully and if you use the worksheets provided, will provide you with a solid foundation for understanding yourself and conquering your trading fears and inadequacies. Ultimately your trading should improve for the better. This book is an excellent resource for all traders. I highly recommend this book.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for all traders, January 13, 2002

By 

David Keyt (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Trading Athlete: Winning the Mental Game of Online Trading (Hardcover)

As an experienced trader, I am amazed I have not encountered a book like this one until now. Over the past few months, I have applied the principles of this book to my trading. I am amazed at the results. It's not so much that I improved my ability to see better trades, but it taught me how to prevent the bad trades. It has brought consistency to my trading days. It has helped me block out the distractions in my life when it comes time to trade. I think the best thing about the book is that it explains the problems all traders face in a framework we can understand, and then provides a path to improve. I can't say enough about this book. If you don't follow the principles of this book, you won't be a trader for long.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars nice read but not sufficiently hands on, February 20, 2006

By 

trading litterature reviewer "trading reader" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Trading Athlete: Winning the Mental Game of Online Trading (Hardcover)

At first, i was enthoused by the uplifting style in which the book is written. That is an asset in itselft as it contributes to giving you a positive attitude. But once you have finished the book and try to elaborate some plan to implement some long term goals, you reckon that there is no specific help on how to define short term goals which is in essence the most important message of the book. It is apparent that the autors have extensive experience sport psychology and i think the book is actually more helpful if you are into weight lifting than into trading as it is somewhat more difficult to formulate goals that relate to emotional issues than easily measurable results in sports (power, speed etc.) and fixing short term monetary goals is counterproductive as the book states itself as the most important thing in trading is consistency. So there is no information on how to put the ideas into practise which considerabely decreases the practical value of the book.