5 Must Read Books to Help You Acquaint and Master in Forex Trading
Delving into the forex market is no easy feat; with lots of technicalities to deal with such as thorough market analysis, psychology, patterns, etc. In this field, education is important to first obtain before putting yourself out there. Educating yourself with various books that offer a great deal of crucial and significant information in the world of forex trading is important. Below are some best books that you can learn from to either get started on forex market or brush up your skills and knowledge.
1. Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline and a Winning Attitude by Mark Douglas (2000)
Mark Douglas, a trading expert coach and author of the successful “The Disciplined Trader™-Developing Winning Attitudes” that kick started relating human psychology and behavior to the investment and trading industry, published the book, Trading in the Zone that focuses on the psychological behavior of successful traders and help his readers obtain the proper mental mindset in the world of forex trading. In his book, he also exposes the myths in the market and teaches traders to understand the harsh realities of risk and outcomes in the trading industry.
- How does this book help you become a better forex trader?
Even though Trading in the Zone has been published 20 years ago; its context and lessons are timeless and just as valuable as ever. It can help you through your self-discovery in forex trading. This book can help you identify the ‘self-sabotage’ counter-productive thinking and mental contradictions that leads to trading errors and poor decision making. By identifying these negative behaviors, Trading in the Zone can give you extensive insights in the development of the successful trader’s mindset and provides practical examples of what it takes to become a champ in the trading industry.
2. Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders by Jack D. Schwager (2012)
In this book, Jack D. Schwager let us in an exclusive scoop of the secrets and techniques of the world’s top traders and their phenomenal success in the trading industry. This book features exclusive interviews from business tycoons such as Bruce Kovner, Richard Dennis, Paul Tudor Jones, Michel Steinhardt, Ed Seykota, Marty Schwartz, Tom Baldwin, etc., where they share their own experiences and guiding principles that led them to be the powerhouse money-maker traders that amassed tens to hundreds of millions of dollars a year with one main similarity: their solid methodology and proper mental attitude had resulted to their trading success.
- How will this book help you become the next top successful trader?
By reading the firsthand accounts of some of the wealthiest and top expert traders; Market Wizards help you be inspired from the tips and tricks, interesting success stories, and values that you can apply in your own techniques and principles in trading.
3. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke (2018)
Thinking in Bets differ its focus on trading compared to the previous books; it focuses on taking risks despite uncertainties in the trading industry by comparing it to the game of poker (and in other fields as well such as politics or sports) to make better decisions. Annie Duke, poker champion and business consultant highlights in her book about changing the mindset of a trader to treat the trading industry similar as to taking bets. With her warm, humorous and down to earth discussions paired with her sharp, data-driven analysis; Duke helps the reader contemplate and come up a new way to understand your own shortcomings and make more intelligent choices and decisions in the future despite many possible outcomes.
- How does the book specifically improve your decision making skills in forex trading?
Thinking in Bets normalizes the concept that traders are just any flawed human being and even the best can somehow still strike out when it comes to making decisions. And even their best decisions don’t always yield the best outcome sometimes. So instead of getting sick with worry about all the decisions and risk you have to take; to think in bets is one strategy for a trader to make better decisions. But how will you do it? Simple. Just ask these following questions to yourself: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making? All of these questions are taken from the book.
As what Thinking in Bets further explains: “By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don’t, you’ll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You’ll become more confident, calm, compassionate and successful in the long run.” We couldn’t have made a better explanation ourselves.
4. Currency Trading for Dummies By Kathleen Brooks and Brian Dolan (2015)
Oh, the Dummies book series. The classic, quintessential, instructional and reference with yellow cover guidebook for everything under the sun; and these books are great for rookies to educate themselves in a particular subject matter through their simplified explanations and lessons for anyone to grasp the basic, important information one aspires to learn in that subject.
Currency Trading for Dummies is your fundamental plain English guide to currency trading. This hands-on, user friendly guidebook explains in simplest terms how the foreign exchange market works and how you can be part of that market. The book covers important aspects in the forex market such as currency trading conventions and tools, importance of organization, main characteristics of successful currency traders, guidance to avoid trading pitfalls, detailed breakdown of major currencies, and most importantly, the tips and tricks on how to get started on trading in forex markets.
- How important is this book to educate you in the world of forex market?
Currency Trading for Dummies is basically one of the principal books you need to study if you want to dive in the waters of forex market. If you are a complete rookie and does not have an idea or two about forex or forex market; this book is the ultimate guidebook to help you acquaint in the field of forex trading. Currency Trading for Dummies is essential not only because it teaches you the following lessons you need to know to become a forex trader such as:
- Understanding how the market works and its benefits,
- Researching the global forex markets,
- Applying mobile and platform trading solutions,
But also because this book is absolutely user-friendly; you can easily study this book without asking a great deal of help from an expert just to understand what does the word forex means. (Although we highly recommend you should take some personal lessons from an expert so your forex education is well rounded— and you can also learn more techniques and expand your skills).
5. How to Make a Living Trading Foreign Exchange: A Guaranteed Income for Life by Courtney Smith (2010)
Another essential reading for every aspiring top forex traders, Courtney Smith explains how markets work in simplified terminologies, and provides six money making strategies to generate regular income from trading forex markets. He begins with an introduction to the Forex market, and then delves into the moneymaking techniques for forex trading, plus discussions on powerful risk management techniques and successful trading psychology strategies that will keep you one step ahead of the game.
How does this book help you make a lucrative forex trader?
How to Make a Living Trading Foreign Exchange provides a concrete and comprehensive approach to become a profitable forex trader. It explained all the basic information you need to know to get started in trading forex. The book also discussed different techniques and methods to gain profit, filter trades that helps prevent losing transactions—which any forex trader are basically interested to know about. The book also stressed a great deal of risk management and trader psychology. This is beneficial for people who don’t have the time to read many books at a short span of time.
Keep in mind that these books offer a great deal of priceless advice to survive and thrive in the world of forex market and while these books can only go a long way from that, it is up to you on how you will apply these information in the real world of forex trading.
