Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Mone… (2024)

I don't think this is necessarily a book for beginners. However, it's a book that beginners should read. You will learn that it's all about hard work, and that the folks who sell you systems are selling you fool's gold. (I learnt this the hard way, and then had it demonstrated by my mentor.) You'll also learn exactly why you will fail, and what to do to turn yourself into a successful trader.

One of the best and most comprehensive books I've read on trading - and that's saying something. It was expensive (£55, c.$80) but worth every penny. The author is a doctor who escaped to the US from the former Soviet Union, became a psychiatrist and then a very successful trader. I bought this book for its comprehensive section on trading psychology. Alex Elder tells it like it is, in very plain terms. If you trade, you are your biggest enemy. He tells you what to do about it from within quite a harsh frame of reference: that of Alcoholics Anonymous.

It misses out on that fifth star because it has not been updated since 1992. The result is that it's very much a pencil-and-paper approach to trading signals, and there's no mention of the internet at all. That didn't bother me too much, but I think it would make some readers feel a bit robbed. On the plus side, he actually talks through the psychology of all the indicators. For me, that was a huge bonus. Even though I'm not big on indicators, the people I trade against are - so I have to know them and read the moves of the crowd.

Actually, I'm going to give this five stars. It's a rare thing for me to start re-reading a book on the same day I finished it.

"Trading for a living" is a comprehensive and magnificent guide for beginners who want to enter the world of trading. Alexender Elder divides his book into three categories: The Psychology section, where he addresses the important mindset for this type of enterprises; Trading tactics, a section dedicated to practical examples of the real world of trading; Money Management, the last part of the book that approaches the most efficient methods for risk management.
"Emotional trading is the enemy of success"
The most interesting and relevant section of the book is the Psychology chapter. In this section, the author discusses the psychological mindset of a trader. He claims that irrational and emotional actions are the enemy for a successful trading business. The psychological part has a relevant weight for success. After all, trading is not only an intellectual process but also a temperamental process.
The second part (Trading tactics) addresses real-time/practical measures during the Trading process.
On the third part, Alexander Elder gives out some tips for better management of one's trading accounts, including how to not risk all the available capital.
The details are left for those who are eager to start in the trading world. This book is a good starting point for those who want to have a larger perspective of this complex mechanism.

Fascinating beginning about the psychology of trading and prices. Read the whole first section and last section. The middle portion of the book about technical analysis was a bit too much for me to read in full.

This gentleman is clearly smart and I gained some good nuggets of wisdom from listening to this on CD. But I am just not wired to try to predict fluctuations in the market based on the statistics of graphed wave lengths of human behavior - I gravitate toward looking at the business's model of performance & intent.

perhaps the best book in technical analysis for a beginner

A difficult read. This book made a lot more sense after I had read a few other books about the stock market and then read this again. Ok, I read this a second time.

Never done a single trade before reading this book
Never did a single trade after reading book
But loved the way the author has presented the concepts

Useful

An extensive book on trading, covering all the important points like charts, graphs, indicators, psychological factors etc.

The author, Alexander Elder has written in depth about the following points.
1. Risk Management
2. Money Management
3. Trading charts/graphs (There are a lot of charts)
4. Buy low, Sell high
5. Emotions and Trading
6. Indicators and trading systems/setups

And a few others, that you should get to read in this book.

I find this book helpful as an amateur trader, and I'll find this book helpful as a professional trader too because this book tells you the difference between the amateur traders and the professional ones, who dare to eat whatever amateur traders are losing.

In this book, in the end, you will find a short explanation of what is stock, futures, options chains that I think should have been written in the first chapters as it might have been way more useful for the amateur traders, but I think the author has written keeping in mind that most of the amateur traders know this thing.

The author has focused on and emphasized more on risk and money management. He thinks these two things are more important because only if you survive the shark bites, you will be able to swim deep in the sea and in the ocean, otherwise, all we see is water getting bloody red.

It's a must-read book for the traders, investors, too.

Do read this book.

Akshat Solanki

Great book. It exposes a lot of brutal truths about the trading industry at large, while explaining in detail how social psychology of the masses manifests itself into the charts patterns that people bank on to make money.
It talks extensively about the underlying principles that make a great trader, and what gets losers wiped out.

It includes a lot of technical jargon, so it is not recommended for a complete trading newbie but is very useful and enjoyable read once some trading knowledge is acquired.

A great book to learn the basics and of trading. Some things are a little out of date like trading commissions but others are good rules to follow such as trade with no emotions and never risk more than 2% on any trade.

I found this book to move really quick and was worth the small few tips I got from it.

Hace tiempo que sentía curiosidad por el mundo del trading, y debo decir que he conseguido saciarla. Por un lado, aproveché para poner en práctica algunos consejos en un mercado dentro de un videojuego, ya que es un libro que se centra en uno de los tres pilares del trading: la psicología (concretamente, la psicología de masas). Me gustó la forma que tuvo el autor de explicar ciertas acciones que ponen a los iniciados en peligro, y cómo evitarlo.

Pero esto no es todo: los conceptos más técnicos me perdían, sinceramente. Esto me llevó a pensar que, como todo, si quieres trabajar de algo, más vale enfocar todas tus energías en ello durante el proceso de aprendizaje (y con más razón si vas a poner en juego tu capital).

Dejo el libro para futuras revisiones, nunca se sabe

I first read this classic in 1995, when I was more or less holding my own in commodity trading (a dangerous pasttime I eventually gave up because the modest profits I saw did not justify the emotional wringer I was going through every day). I remember being a little annoyed with Elder's way of restating fairly basic points again and again in choppy, repetitious paragraphs. That style is still a problem. At times it seems that he must have dictated his thoughts into a recorder and never took time to go through the transcript and clean it up.

On the other hand, simple though his points may be, they are worth learning. I particularly like his early chapter about gurus and the tendency so many of us have to put our trust in anybody but ourselves (and not only when it comes to trading, I've observed!). Likewise, he has a great analysis of crowd behavior. He's trained as a psychiatrist, so I guess it figures.

As far as actual guidance goes, what he has are mostly truisms that nevertheless need to be part of any trader's education. For example:
- "Your goal is to trade well, not to trade often."
- "You need to know exactly under what conditions you will enter and exit a trade."
- "You must not change your plan while you have an open position."

It does get a little more technical than that, but for a thorough treatment of indicators like Fibonacci sequences, moving averages, etc. another book would be needed. Elder is best simply at defining what every trader is up against ("The money you want to make belongs to other people who have no intention of giving it to you."). His book doesn't provide a clear path to success at that endeavor. On the other hand, no one should jump into the markets without knowing what it says.

This 3 hours audio book is great introduction to trading psychology if you are new to the concepts and probably can learn a few things even if you have experience in this area. The book is about a quarter of a century old but still has great concepts that can be applied to today's market.

This is not my first trading psychology book that I have read and still I was introduced to some new aspects. There is the popular believe that trading is a Zero sum game. However, when you pay your commissions to your broker the odds against you are greater. In addition, there is the chance to slippage both negative and positive but chances are you are going to pay extra for negative slippage. So if two people enter into a trade at the same time in opposite direction with same take profit and sell loss one of them is going to be a winner and one of them is going to be a loser. But the one that looses money will be greater than the one that is making money. Personally I do not use the go with the trend technique but it is a personal choice.

It was my second re-read of the Russian version, which includes workbook which amounts to almost half of the volume. Going through exercises was interesting and revealed that areas I thought I knew well were not so good and vice versa.

One controversy which bugs me after reading this book is that on one hand Dr. Elder talks about "not trading against a long term trend", i.e. going along with weekly and monthly trends ("first screen"). On the other hand, most of the "strongest technical signals" he describes are about divergences, i.e. catching the moments when the trend breaks and going against it. It's seems almost impossible to combine these two techniques, because divergences on daily graphs are rarely occur in the direction *along* with the weekly trend, they are mostly happening against, before weekly trend changes too.

Excelent, MUST READ book for traders.
It may not be as extensive as Murphys (considered the bible of AT), but its a bit more complex in some aspects, giving more of the authors particular views on trading, his indicators and strategies.
I think it would have been a perfect book if it had more about money management and portfolio management.
I enjoyed reading it. Simple and direct style from the author makes it easy to go through.

Treat this book like a text book on the psychology behind trading stocks. The author is basing his approach to trading stocks on the thought processes of crowds. It sounds well thought out; but does it really help trade for a profit? Expect to put a lot of time into this one if you really want to learn enough to try it out, even if only on paper.

old book, gives some insight, audiobook is about 3 hours long. I found a good part of it to be filler, and most of the concepts you learn elsewhere. He does drive home some good points about strategy and how it's not really a zero sum game; it's worse. Time can be better spent on other books, or maybe the new version (haven't listened to it yet)

Un libro interesante con todo lo básico del trading, la parte más importante no son el manejo de los indicadores técnicos sino la psicología del trading y el money management. En definitiva, este libro debe estar en la biblioteca de los traders.

This book was published in 1992. The new version just came out last year. Great book for anyone starting out.

Good book, however there is a new updated version: The New Trading For a Living

Very interesting book which teaches anybody how to start trading with confidence

A great read to look into how traders think and good views on psychology

This book changed my life and changed the way I trade. Part of the reason I can say that is the fact that I developed my all-time most reliable and profitable trade from Elder's simple explanations. Fully 80% of my trades are based on a formation that occurs using two indicators described in this book. Elder even identifies the formation as being "the strongest signal in technical analysis." I will certainly agree, though it took me some time to find the ideal market and time-frame for it. If you trade futures, stocks, or currencies with Candlesticks, the secret is in this book. It gave me the edge I needed to become consistently profitable. I own more than 60 trading related books (those are just the keepers) and I think what makes Elder stand out is the fact that he is/was a successful trader for many years and that the content of this book is the hard-won wisdom of those years. This is not a book written by some infomercial peddler who makes his living selling trading "courses." I chuckle when I see the price for this book is $47.25 because I would have counted it a steal at a hundred times that. To unlock the strategies in Trading for a Living you will have to adapt them to your own trading style, vehicle, and funds. I agree with another reviewer who said this book is for a person who is more than an amateur but not yet a pro. I believe that the techniques used by most very sophisticated professional traders are built on the indicators and principles found in this book.

When I was barely 25 years old, my interest in investing in the stock market and other financial instruments began. Unfortunately for me it was a complete disaster, since it is very difficult to gather money to invest and not need it; as recommended by those who teach us to invest.

Now my son Jose Luis Rivera wants to be an investor, and he is going to learn to be one.

His “sensei” recommended the book “Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management” by Alexander Elder.

At ITAM, where I studied, they teach us that markets are efficient and you cannot beat the market, however there are some who beat it, and by a lot. Elder teaches us some important techniques, including:

- Have a system based on multiple tests, and only invest if all tests are positive.
- Do not link your investment with emotions. An investor can be like an alcoholic wanting to have a good time (like I was in my youth).
- Investing is a lifetime job. If you are going to do it, you will always.

The technical part of the book is pretty good at what is called "technical analysis", however you have to study efficient markets and "fundamental analysis."

Good book to study, not just for casual reading.

One of the exceptional books about trading!
To become successful trader, you need to understand that every purchase is also a sell. You're the part of market. Stock market moves because of peoples emotions and rarely on rationals. If people were buying/selling things based on rationals then prices will never move, because everyone agrees on the rational price. This book gives a real sense of how stock prices move and what you can learn from it and use it for your advantage.
If you are looking for some (magic) strategy that you would make your profitable. You will be frustrated. But will tell you what thinking you need to adapt to create a successful strategy.
End of the day, everyone makes money in their own profession/business if they do it in a right way. And same thing goes for stock trading also. You want to learn from one of experience trade, then this book is your jam.

This was okay but very basic. In hindsight, I think this is a book aimed at beginners perhaps.

Elder identifies three crucial pillars that trading rests on: psychology, a good trading strategy and effective money management. He also suggests keeping good records. All fair standard stuff.

In terms of risk management he suggests a 2/6% rule: Never risk more than 2% of your account per trade and stop trading for the month at 6% draw down. This is absolute arbitrary nonsense of course and betrays a lack of any real understanding of risk management but perhaps this is just anecdotal advise for beginners.

He also suggests not allowing commissions to eat up your profits and I agree, to an extent, but commissions are sometimes the cost of doing business and, in my opinion, this is how they should be viewed.

Book for those who have a bit of understanding of stock market

Author of book recommend to read:
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

Some points it made that stood out:

- In bull market, low for the week are Monday or Tuesday, rally to new high Thursday or Friday.
- In bear market, high is set Monday or Tuesday, new low on thur or Friday
- The closing prices are those of professional trader's , and sell before closing to avoid carrying it to next day.
- If prices close higher than open then market professionals where more bullish
- If prices close lower than open then market professionals where more bearish
- Play with professionals not amateurs

Will have to read again cuz something's I didn't understand