83 books like The Disciplined Trader

By Mark Douglas,

Here are 83 books that The Disciplined Trader fans have personally recommended if you like The Disciplined Trader. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders

Kevin J. Davey Author Of Entry and Exit Confessions of a Champion Trader: 52 Ways A Professional Speculator Gets In And Out Of The Stock, Futures And Forex Markets

From my list on that help to become a champion trader.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been trading for over 30 years now, and I was lucky to be one of the part-time “hobby” traders to be successful enough to trade full time. Along the way, I was a 3-time trophy winner in the world’s premier real time, real money futures trading contest. My passion is trading, both for my personal accounts and in assisting my students with their trading. While I always say “trading is the hardest way to make easy money” this field is my lifelong passion.

Kevin's book list on that help to become a champion trader

Kevin J. Davey Why did Kevin love this book?

There are quite a few titles in the Market Wizards book collection, but my personal favorite is still the first of the series. In the book, Jack interviews different successful traders and investors. You’ll get to learn the basics of what they did (I personally know of one reader who started a successful hedge fund after reading one chapter of this book), but more importantly, you will be able to understand and explore the mindset of winning traders. Reading this book will help you mimic the behavior of some of the great traders of our time.

By Jack D. Schwager,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Market Wizards as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The world's top trader's reveal the secrets of their phenomenal success! How do the world's most successful traders amass tens, hundreds of millions of dollars a year? Are they masters of an occult knowledge, lucky winners in a random market lottery, natural-born virtuosi Mozarts of the markets? In search of an answer, bestselling author Jack D. Schwager interviewed dozens of top traders across most financial markets. While their responses differed in the details, all of them could be boiled down to the same essential formula: solid methodology + proper mental attitude = trading success. In Market Wizards Schwager lets you…


Book cover of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Brad Schaeffer Author Of Life in the Pits: My Time as a Trader on the Rough-and-Tumble Exchange Floors

From my list on what makes commodities traders tick.

Why am I passionate about this?

After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1989 with an LAS degree in communications and a knack for artwork, I had no idea what I wanted to do. That was until my brother pulled me from my low-paid art job in Chicago to work as a clerk on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I eventually became a trader on that same floor, as well as an oil and gas dealer in New York. Screaming and yelling in the trading pits while money moved back and forth with a shout and a hand signal I learned more about investing, trading, and human nature through osmosis than I ever could in an MBA course.

Brad's book list on what makes commodities traders tick

Brad Schaeffer Why did Brad love this book?

Of all the books about trading written over the decades, perhaps none is still so beloved, revered, and followed as this 1923 classic by journalist Edwin Lefèvre. Although technically a work of fiction, the book really is about the life and trading style of one of the greatest speculators of all time, Jesse Livermore (told under the guise of “Larry Livingston”).

What makes this book such a treasure is not just its fun prose, and interesting glimpse into what the process of investing in old exchanges and “bucket shops” was over a century ago, when ticker-tape and board boys with chalk and ladders were one’s only information about market prices, but also how the mind of one of the world’s greatest traders worked.

This book offers many gems of knowledge about trading—based upon the general principle that, although methods and technologies change, human nature does not and therefore “there is…

By Edwin Lefèvre,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Reminiscences of a Stock Operator as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is a fictionalized story based on the trading career of Jesse Livermore. It follows his journey from the age of 15 when he made his first $1,000 to becoming a Wall Street legend.


Book cover of Option Volatility and Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques

Richard L. Weissman Author Of Trade Like a Casino

From my list on for trading like a casino.

Why am I passionate about this?

Richard L. Weissman is one of the world’s foremost authorities and thought leaders in the fields of derivatives, risk management and technical analysis. He is the author of two books: Mechanical Trading Systems: Pairing Trader Psychology with Technical Analysis (Wiley, 2004) and Trade Like a Casino: Find Your Edge, Manage Risk and Win Like the House (Wiley, 2011) which was a finalist for the 2012 Technical Analyst Book of the Year Award. Mr. Weissman has over thirty years experience as a derivatives trader and has provided training and consultation services to traders and risk managers at investment banks, hedge funds, energy, and agricultural companies for over twenty years. 

Richard's book list on for trading like a casino

Richard L. Weissman Why did Richard love this book?

Traders often ask me for a book that will teach them the nuts and bolts (pricing models, volatility, the Greeks, spread strategies, etc.,) of options and I always recommend this book. When I was learning options, the Natenberg book hadn’t been written and although there were “good” books on the topic, Natenberg is truly the gold standard for options traders.

By Sheldon Natenberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Option Volatility and Pricing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WHAT EVERY OPTION TRADER NEEDS TO KNOW. THE ONE BOOK EVERY TRADER SHOULD OWN.

The bestselling Option Volatility & Pricing has made Sheldon Natenberg a widely recognized authority in the option industry. At firms around the world, the text is often the first book that new professional traders aregiven to learn the trading strategies and risk management techniques required for success in option markets.

Now, in this revised, updated, and expanded second edition, this thirty-year trading professional presents the most comprehensive guide to advanced trading strategies and techniques now in print. Covering a wide range of topics as diverse and…


Book cover of Hedge Hogs: The Cowboy Traders Behind Wall Street's Largest Hedge Fund Disaster

Brad Schaeffer Author Of Life in the Pits: My Time as a Trader on the Rough-and-Tumble Exchange Floors

From my list on what makes commodities traders tick.

Why am I passionate about this?

After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1989 with an LAS degree in communications and a knack for artwork, I had no idea what I wanted to do. That was until my brother pulled me from my low-paid art job in Chicago to work as a clerk on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I eventually became a trader on that same floor, as well as an oil and gas dealer in New York. Screaming and yelling in the trading pits while money moved back and forth with a shout and a hand signal I learned more about investing, trading, and human nature through osmosis than I ever could in an MBA course.

Brad's book list on what makes commodities traders tick

Brad Schaeffer Why did Brad love this book?

A relatively new arrival on the list, Dreyfuss’s diligently crafted book is the most in-depth look at one of Wall Street’s most spectacular, if lesser-known, collapses in 2006.

The book takes us through the rise of two forces in energy trading embarking on a collision course that would be the ruin of one and an immense windfall of the other. Amaranth hedge fund was an up-and-comer and darling of the hedge fund space. Boasting stellar returns on its several billion in capital, it was able to raise massive sums to hand over to its wunderkind energy trading guru, the Canadian Brian Hunter.

Hunter had set out to dethrone John Arnold at Centaurus (the former Enron whiz kid and youngest member of the Forbes 400) as the biggest energy derivatives trader on the Street. Hunter’s ego soon got him into trouble when a series of disastrous and massively overleveraged bets collapsed,…

By Barbara T. Dreyfuss,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hedge Hogs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For readers of The Smartest Guys in the Room and When Genius Failed, the definitive take on Brian Hunter, John Arnold, Amaranth Advisors, and the largest hedge fund collapse in history

At its peak, hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC had more than $9 billion in assets. A few weeks later, it completely collapsed. The disaster was largely triggered by one man: thirty-two-year-old hotshot trader Brian Hunter. His high-risk bets on natural gas prices bankrupted his firm and destroyed his career, while John Arnold, his rival at competitor fund Centaurus, emerged as the highest-paid trader on Wall Street. Meticulously researched and…


Book cover of Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London

Donald Angus MacKenzie Author Of Trading at the Speed of Light: How Ultrafast Algorithms Are Transforming Financial Markets

From my list on financial trading and the global financial system.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a sociologist at the University of Edinburgh, and for almost fifty years I’ve researched a large variety of topics, from the story of the guidance systems of nuclear missiles to the instantaneous auctions that, today, determine the ads you are shown online. But I keep returning to the topic of trading and the global financial system. The processes that lie behind this shape our lives in profound ways, but they are often both complicated and opaque. We need reliable guides for them, and the authors and books that I am recommending are among the very best guides!

Donald's book list on financial trading and the global financial system

Donald Angus MacKenzie Why did Donald love this book?

Chicago’s famous ‘open-outcry’ trading pits were packed with hundreds of traders making deals with each other using eye contact and hand signals, or simply shouting out their bids and offers. Anthropologist Caitlin Zaloom did something quite extraordinary. She studied these pits ‘from the inside’ (as a trader’s clerk) and then went on to examine the electronic trading that was starting to replace them – herself becoming a trader. Her book represents anthropology at its most skilled and offers a fascinating glimpse of the lost world of face-to-face trading (nearly all of Chicago’s pits are now closed). 

I researched Chicago’s pits myself in the years in which they still flourished, but not in the depth that Zaloom achieved. I’m in awe of her fabulous fieldwork.

By Caitlin Zaloom,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Out of the Pits as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In "Out of the Pits", Caitlin Zaloom shows how traders, brokers, and global financial markets have adapted to the digital age. Drawing on her firsthand experiences as a clerk and a trader, as well as her unusual access to key sites of global finance, she explains how changes at the world's leading financial exchanges have transformed economic cultures and the craft of speculation; how people and places are responding to the digital transition; how traders are remaking themselves to compete in the contemporary marketplace; and how brokers, business managers, and software designers are collaborating to build new markets. A penetrating…


Book cover of Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

George Anders Author Of Merchants of Debt: KKR and the Mortgaging of American Business

From my list on financial heroes and villains.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first job after college was at The Wall Street Journal, working evenings as a copyreader. It was thrilling to enter a big-league newsroom, but torture to be confined to putting tiny headlines on even tinier stories. Then at age 23, after a whirlwind staff shuffle, I started writing the paper’s premier stock-market column, “Heard on the Street.” Daylight had arrived. For the next 11 years, I covered finance. I met billionaires and people en route to prison. It wasn’t always easy to tell them apart! My writing career has widened since then but sizing up markets – and the people who rule them – remains an endless fascination. 

George's book list on financial heroes and villains

George Anders Why did George love this book?

There have been newer books on Warren Buffett since this 1995 gem, but this one goes the deepest into the mechanisms that have brought Buffett a $124 billion fortune. Plus it’s the best on Buffett’s quirky personality. I’ve known Roger from our days at The Wall Street Journal together, and it was exciting seeing him research this project over a three-year span – even if Buffett never officially helped him. The finished book made me feel I “knew” Buffett as if he were a long-time neighbor. 

By Roger Lowenstein,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Buffett as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Since its hardcover publication in August of 1995, Buffett has appeared on the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Newsday and Business Week bestseller lists.

Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the twentieth century—an astounding net worth of $10 billion, and counting. His awesome investment record has made him a cult figure popularly known for his seeming contradictions: a billionaire who has a modest lifestyle, a phenomenally successful investor who eschews the revolving-door trading of modern Wall Street,…


Book cover of The Money Game

Victor Haghani Author Of The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Better Financial Decisions

From my list on intelligent financial decision-making in less than 200 pages.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have over four decades of experience working and innovating in the financial markets and have been a prolific contributor to academic and practitioner finance literature. I started my career at Salomon Brothers in 1984, where I became a managing director in the bond-arbitrage group, and in 1993 I was a co-founding partner of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. I founded Elm Wealth in 2011 to help clients, including my own family, manage and preserve their wealth with a thoughtful, research-based, and cost-effective approach that covers not just investment management but also broader decisions about wealth and finances.

Victor's book list on intelligent financial decision-making in less than 200 pages

Victor Haghani Why did Victor love this book?

This book by "Adam Smith" (a tongue-in-cheek pseudonym) is a witty, irreverent dive into Wall Street's chaotic world. I was continuously laughing and learning both times I read this book.

It exposes the madness and irrationality of the financial decision-making of many market participants while debunking common myths and "get rich quick" schemes. I was left with a much deeper understanding of the actual game that is being played below the surface.

It was one of the first books that explained to me how "winning" doesn't always mean making the most money. It made me a much more aware investor. This unconventional book was decades ahead of its time, and it’s a fun, short, and highly worthwhile read.

By Adam Smith,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Money Game as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“The best book there is about the stock market”—timeless investing basics by the host of the Emmy Award–winning show Adam Smith’s Money World (The New York Times Book Review).

This essential book takes readers to the Street to learn about the intricacies of money and how the stock market impacts every area of our lives. According to the author, the key to making wise, lucrative investments is knowing ourselves. In witty, easily accessible language, he shares pithy insights about the role of intuition and the psychology of guilt, arguing that there is no substitute for information. Smith’s Irregular Rules shatter…


Book cover of Global Asset Allocation: A Survey of the World's Top Asset Allocation Strategies

Jason Kelly Author Of The 3% Signal: The Investing Technique That Will Change Your Life

From my list on to learn systematic stock market investing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the author of The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing and The 3% Signal, among other financial books, and editor of The Kelly Letter. Despite having been ranked by CXO Advisory as one of the best stock-market forecasters, I gave up the practice in favor of price reaction. I realized that nobody knows where stocks are headed, myself included, and set out to find ways to beat the market without forecasting—and succeeded. My readers and I are now much happier and wealthier.

Jason's book list on to learn systematic stock market investing

Jason Kelly Why did Jason love this book?

This book traverses the world to find asset allocation best practices, from master investors to lesser-known but equally helpful ones. The main takeaway is confirmation that basic asset classes are all you need, nothing exotic. All of the best systematic portfolios simply rearrange the basic asset classes in slightly different ways. The upshot for you? As long as you confine your portfolio management to these core building blocks, you probably won’t go wrong. It sure beats buying a penny stock everybody’s talking about.

By Mebane T. Faber,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Global Asset Allocation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With all of our focus on assets - and how much and when to allocate them - are we missing the bigger picture? Our book begins by reviewing the historical performance record of popular assets like stocks, bonds, and cash. We look at the impact inflation has on our money. We then start to examine how diversification through combining assets, in this case a simple stock and bond mix, works to mitigate the extreme drawdowns of risky asset classes. But we go beyond a limited stock/bond portfolio to consider a more global allocation that also takes into account real assets.…


Book cover of Come Into My Trading Room: A Complete Guide to Trading

Bo Yoder Author Of Optimize Your Trading Edge: Increase Profits, Reduce Draw-Downs, and Eliminate Leaks in Your Trading Strategy

From my list on helping you optimize your trading edge.

Why am I passionate about this?

I first fell in love with the markets when in 1995, I made more on 1 stock investment than I did working all winter in the freezing cold as a ski instructor. I see it as the world’s greatest game and it has given me a life of unparalleled freedom that I am eternally grateful for. Trading has allowed me to pursue my interests and go deep into behavioral psychology, economics, neurobiology, and would never have had the breakthroughs I have had like the Bottega method for AI or the Myalolipsis technique for developing effortless, unshakable self-discipline if I hadn’t been an active trader.

Bo's book list on helping you optimize your trading edge

Bo Yoder Why did Bo love this book?

Another trader who writes about the reality of trading for a living, Dr. Elder has really laid out many of the critical fundamentals of a successful trading operation in this book.  

Engaging and easy to read, this book will likely shock you with its simplicity, focus on planning, and conservative “grinding” for cash-flowing the markets.

Trading has this sexy image of well-dressed men screaming into phones, before they head out to their yachts. In reality it is supremely boring and the best traders I know live lives of complete freedom… Often totally unrecognized by their neighbors. 

This book gives you a real insight into the day-to-day operations of a career trader and it’s an important perspective shift for anybody wanting to make trading a significant aspect of their life.

By Alexander Elder,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Come Into My Trading Room as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The trading bible for the new millennium

In Come Into My Trading Room, noted trader and author Dr. Alexander Elder returns to expand far beyond the three M's (Mind, Method, and Money) of his bestselling Trading for a Living. Shifting focus from technical analysis to the overall management of a trader's money, time, and strategy, Dr. Elder takes readers from the fundamentals to the secrets of being a successful trader--identifying new, little known indicators that can lead to huge profits.

Come Into My Trading Room educates the novice and fortifies the professional through expert advice and proven trading methodologies. This…


Book cover of Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought

Stephen R. Foerster Author Of In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: The Stories, Voices, and Key Insights of the Pioneers Who Shaped the Way We Invest

From my list on developing your investment philosophy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been interested in investing for over four decades since I started as a finance PhD student at Wharton. Since then my research has focused on understanding the stock market. Early on, I tried applying my research to my investing. For example, I was convinced that a recently listed stock called Google was way overvalued—was I ever wrong! That got me to reflect on my investment philosophy—what did I truly believe about how markets really behaved? That brought me back to understanding and appreciating the contributors to Modern Portfolio Theory, which led to a fun decade-long book project. Currently I enjoy writing about investing through my blog.

Stephen's book list on developing your investment philosophy

Stephen R. Foerster Why did Stephen love this book?

I also first met Andrew when I was a PhD student in the first course he taught at Wharton. I was fortunate to be his co-author decades later.

I can’t think of anyone else who is both so incredibly bright but also articulate and an engaging storyteller in so many areas. Lo’s book challenges the fundamental theory of market efficiency which suggests that security prices reflect all relevant information—in other words, that securities are always fairly priced.

Drawing on psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, he comes up with a convincing a new model, that he calls the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis.

By Andrew W. Lo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Adaptive Markets as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A new, evolutionary explanation of markets and investor behavior

Half of all Americans have money in the stock market, yet economists can't agree on whether investors and markets are rational and efficient, as modern financial theory assumes, or irrational and inefficient, as behavioral economists believe. The debate is one of the biggest in economics, and the value or futility of investment management and financial regulation hangs on the answer. In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Lo transforms the debate with a powerful new framework in which rationality and irrationality coexist-the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis. Drawing on psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence,…


Book cover of Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders
Book cover of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Book cover of Option Volatility and Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques

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