The Trading Athlete: Winning the Mental Game of Online Trading

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 successEach 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 stressAlso 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.

I have been a stock trader for 3 years, during which time I have read many books and articles about trading. This book is quite simply one of the best I have read. It helps organize the mental keys neccesary to be a successful trader, no matter what type of trading you do. In my opinion there are three books every trader should read. 1. Technical Analysis of Financial Markets - John Murphy 2.Pit Bull - Martin Schwartz 3. The Trading Athlete - Hirschhorn, Murphy.

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.

i recently finished "The Trading Athlete" and found it quite helpful to my trading business. I have been been an equities trader for several years now and on Wall Street for longer, and yet was still able to take away a tremendous amount of information from this book. The psychological/mental game involved in trading is the most difficult aspect to grasp, and yet Murphy and Hirshhorn provide simple guidelines that i have found to not only be helpful, but work to improve the mental game. I recommend this work to traders of all levels. It will no doubt improve your trading profitability.

I have been trading online for over 5 years, and had I had this book at my disposal 5 years ago, Murphy and Hirschhorn would have saved me bundles of money and even more in stress and aggravation. Their insightful and easy to implement approaches to concepts such as trading goals, slumps, focus, pressure, distractions, recovering from bad trades and just enjoying the challenge of trading will give any online trader the basic tools he or she needs to become successful at this game. And a game it is, as the authors skillfully compare trading to sports and athletics. Easy to follow, self-help worksheets, and clear, understandable analogies to the world of sports will keep you coming back to this book for a quick "skill sharpening" and will also keep this book front and center on your trading desk. Read all the stock reports, and hands-on trading books you want. Until you master the mental part of the world of online trading, you won't get anywhere. This book will assure that you master the mental part of your careers and will undoubtedly be the key to a long and successful career in online trading.