Winning the Mental Game on Wall Street: The Psychology and Philosophy of Successful Investing [Hardcover]

John Magee (Author), W.H.C. Bassetti (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0910944172 | ISBN-13: 978-0910944175 | Edition: 1

This book is the new edition of John Magee's classic General Semantics of Wall Street.
An indispensable companion to John Magee's and Robert Edward's classic, Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, Winning the Mental Game on Wall Street covers the mind set, the preconceptions, the false and misleading habits that hinder peak performance. It exhaustively deconstructs the movement of the stock market, shows you how to decipher its behavior, and teaches you its symbolic language or general semantics.
Written by John Magee and edited by W.H. Charles Bassetti, this book prepares you for the mental game on Wall Street. The book re-trains your mind to handle the market skillfully. Magee, arguably the wisest investment advisor in history, leads you toward a common sense mentality and method that virtually assures success in the long run. The secret? Right mind, right habits, right techniques. Through careful study and application of the concepts suggested by Magee, an average investor becomes a highly effective trader. Winning the Mental Game on Wall Street prepares your mind to operate effectively in the financial markets.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book is a classic--the standard of excellence against which everything in technical analysis is measured.
--Ralph Acampora, Prudential Securities

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: CRC Press; 1 edition (April 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0910944172
• ISBN-13: 978-0910944175
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,240,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top of the list, January 10, 2004

By 

dbphoenix (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Winning the Mental Game on Wall Street: The Psychology and Philosophy of Successful Investing (Hardcover)

Of all the books available on the markets, this is the one I'd recommend to a beginner as a starting point. I'm not surprised that an amateur would be disappointed (or even dissapoined) in it since it doesn't provide quick-start recipes for guaranteed success in the financial arena. What it does do is explain what the markets are all about. It dispels the myths that lead to inevitable losses and eventual ruin, preparing one for the reality of the market rather than perpetuating the illusions that enable all those advisory services, newsletters, and gurus to flourish.

You won't learn the "best" MACD settings here. What you will learn is the reality of the markets, a necessary first step toward creating a trading style.

Oddly enough, Amazon has paired the book with The Nature of Risk, above, at least temporarily, which is the second book I'd recommend to anyone interested in learning how to approach the financial markets.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read At Any Stage, October 12, 2004

By 

Just My Opinion - See all my reviews

This review is from: Winning the Mental Game on Wall Street: The Psychology and Philosophy of Successful Investing (Hardcover)

This is one that I wish I had read when I first started trading. It took me over 3 years to even come across this book. I had no idea it existed. I can't be sure if it would have the same effect then as it does now. However, I honestly feel that it is essential no matter what stage you are in. One would probably benefit to read this book every 3 to 6 months. I have a pretty solid suspicion that the material is this book will take on different meanings during different stages of a trader's progression.

If you are open to change in your life, this will be one of the most influential books you will come across. There is many a paradigm shift in the text. It is often difficult for people to accept change since our perceptions are ingrained from such an early age. However, it is possible to change these habits and preconceptions once one "learns how to see". Magee's book will put you on the right path to "seeing" how Wall Street really is.

This isn't a "how to" book on trading. It is meant as a companion piece to Magee's other work, TA of Stock Trends. And when one considers that these books were written a few generations ago, it lays credence to the adage that the more things change the more they stay the same. The same game is played on Wall Street today as it was 100 years ago and will continue 100 years into the future.

When you are ready to learn (and I mean open your eyes to a new way of thinking) this book will be there for you.

9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dissapoined, October 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Winning the Mental Game on Wall Street: The Psychology and Philosophy of Successful Investing (Hardcover)

I was really dissapointed with this book. After reading 118 pages out of 300+, and browsing over the rest, I decided not to waste my time with this book anymore. Most of the time, the author doesn't talk about the markets, trading systems, or mental strategies to win in Wall Street. He talks about word definitions, stories when he was a kid (not related to the markets), abstract philosophy, what separate us from the animals (how is this related to the title of the book?), repeats a lot of his stories 2 or 3 times... in summary... a book that has been mis-titled. Don't buy this book without doing research on it first. I spent $50 on it and I am debating if donating it to the library or trashing it.