Market Mind Games: A Radical Psychology of Investing, Trading and Risk

This book impressed me. Ms. Shull delivers on the word "Radical" in the title. She has no problem serving up some of trading's sacred cows, medium rare. In particular, she shows from a neuroscientific perspective how the mantra of "Plan the trade, trade the plan" is problematic. How? By showing how it eats up emotional capital.In its place she shows why the notion of emotional capital is important, and just as with regular capital, it is essential to preserve if you want to stay in the game.A word of caution though. The real Rosetta Stone didn't magically make all of ancient Egyptian culture instantly accessible, but it did provide a framework for subsequent efforts which over time expanded our knowledge of history. Similarly, don't expect this book to transform you overnight into someone who Jack Schwager will be trying to get a hold of.What it can do though is help those who respect the importance of personal psychology in trading (a minority IMHO) to better understand their makeup and develop internal strategies for success. (As opposed to the majority who think finding the perfect external strategy is the way to go. Such irony that it's the wetware on the inside driving those efforts in the first place!)I think it is important to talk about the format of the book. If you are expecting a "Dummies Guide to my Trading Brain" with lots of neat bullet points, you will be sorely disappointed. Instead the format is somewhat meandering. I have heard participants in webinars say they didn't like the format as they were reading the book, but by the end they felt it made sense. I actually enjoyed reading the book, but regardless I believe the format is in part trying to illustrate the concept Ms. Shull puts forward called "Fractal Emotional Context."Normally I cringe when I hear someone using the word fractal out of its proper mathematical context. I have a great respect for Benoit Mandelbrot, and can still recall as a pimply teenager in the early 80's holding a copy of "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" and just knowing I had something great in my hands. I still have the book, but since then it seems the term "fractal" has become one of the top 5 words used to peddle trading wares. Just Google up "fractal trading indicator" and you will get 479,000 results.With all of that said, I think Ms. Shull's use of the term "Fractal Emotional Context" is both appropriate and very illustrative. When you sit down to trade, everything from what you said over breakfast to how you were treated as a child is there with you. Just as market action has activity on all time frames, so do you. And more of what is swirling around in there is unconscious than conscious.But this is a good thing. Ms. Shull also reminds us that everyone else is in a similar boat, and suggests ways to use this paradigm to develop an edge.I find a lot of investing/trading books problematic, where all too often a desire to "preach to the choir" (often a greedy choir not willing to do their homework) seems to win out. This book is a vivid exception to that notion.It is clear Ms. Shull wrote this book because she believes in the concepts she presents and feels she can make a contribution to those who are serious about trading. I strongly agree with her ideas and feel lucky I came across her work.

This book is so good. The author basically lays out how to use psychology to improve your profitability as a trader. She does use a fictional story later in the book as a teaching aid. It seems the fictional part of the book was not well understood by some other reviewers. I thought it was very effective and instructive to learn from the emotional turmoil of the fictional character. The author manages to collate and summarize a wide body of state of the art research into the mind and emotions. It's a difficult subject and she did a remarkable job making it understandable for the lay person.My main takeaways from the book are. First, know your emotional context as a method of risk control. If you are angry, tired, frustrated, or overly happy, etc. it can significantly decrease your perception of risk. Second, you can bolster your ability to make market decisions by being well rested and treating trading as more of a physical performance rather than an intellectual exercise. Third, be on alert for situations that cause strong script like emotional reactions which usually stem from difficulties in childhood. This third part is kind of like having an emotional tantrum and can lead to several bad trades instead of one or two.I do think this book and these ideas can help any trader or market participant perform better, mostly by helping them avoid trading in emotional and physical states that are not conducive to make quality decision and also helping them recognize those states in other market participants as well. There is definitely something here to augment and improve whatever edge you have already developed. If you have not yet developed an edge in the market this book will not be as helpful for you. To understand developing the numerical edge I would start with My Trading Bible by Mark Ritchie http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0964695200?keywords=mark%20ritchie&qid=1456150966&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

I waited for almost two years after the release date of "Market Mind Games" was initially announced to get my advanced order copy. "Market Mind Games" is the most unique book about investing or market psychology that I own. To me it appears as a mixture of a Harlequin type novel and the psychology of trading. Readers have the choice of following the story line, the lecture format or both.At first I felt cheated and a bit upset by the format of this book. Following a storyline in addition to lectures was not my idea of learning or of enjoying a novel. I actually had heard several of Denise Shull's lectures previously and, therefore, I was expecting a traditional textbook on the subject. My first thought was to skim the novel parts and read the lectures. I decided to acknowledge my emotions and reexamine the measure of a good book. In my opinion, two things are needed for a book to be good: First, it has to be entertaining; Second, it has to get its point across. After considering these points in conjunction with personal reevaluation, I figured that there must be a method of reason to the chosen format. Reading both the novel part and the lecture part proved to be very informative and mildly entertaining with the advancing storyline.What I liked about this book was that many ideas on market and personal psychology related to trading were presented. The bibliography and index enable "Market Mind Games" to serve also as a textbook on the many subjects presented related to the psychology of trading.Almost forgot - there is homework that will be beneficial for all who choose to do it.