I was on the phone last night making an offer to a college student for our desk and the young man let out a loud, “Yeah! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!”….. And then much more importantly,”What can I do between now and then to prepare.”  At our firm, we send out a reading list for incoming traders to best prepare them.  Here is that list, with an explanation of how it can help your trading.

1. The Talent Code by Dan Coyle.  There are four ingredients for being good at anything, thus trading.  Domain knowledge, critical feedback, sustained energy, and purposeful practice.  Train with these ingredients to find trading success.

2. Golf if Not a Game of Perfect by Bob Rotella.  Confidence trading a $GOOG or $SPY is something built and essential.  This book, written by a top sports golf psychologist, helps you learn to build real confidence.

3. The Daily Trading Coach, by Dr. Brett Steenbarger.  Dr. Steenbarger is the Coach K of coaching in the trading world.  TraderFeed, his daily blog, is a must read for the serious trader and a treasure to the trading community.  This book offers 101 tips to help you improve your mental game as a trader, the 800 pound gorilla on every trading station.

4. Bounce by Matthew Syed.  This book studies why a small cluster of young lads in England became the best table tennis players in the world.  This read emphasizes the importance of great coaching for elite performance.  For example, today on our desk we had behind door discussions with some on our desk about missed opportunities in $INTC and $VLTC.  Critical feedback from coaches is essential for trading improvement.

5. Drive by Daniel Pink.  When we were young our parents preached, “Find something you love and do it.  The rest will take care of itself.”  Dan offers a better thought, “Do what you do.”  If you are not trading, then how can you really love trading?  In today’s world the barrier for entry into trading is almost nothing.  Paper trade, open a small account, back-test.  But you should be trading if you love trading.  Do what you do!

6. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  Flow is the state of optimum performance-  when you do what you truly love and get lost in the process.  When I think of the new trader, I wonder: Can you become a great trader if you do not experience the state of flow while trading?

7. Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. You do need talent to become a successful trader.  But there are more important things than talent, like the hours you put in practicing and studying trading after the close.

8. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.  This is a helpful book to find your best trading time frame.  Professor Kahneman argues most of us think either better quickly or slowly.  If you are a very fast thinker than scalping high beta names like $NFLX, $TSLA $AMZN and $BIIB  might be your game.  If you are analytical, then macro trading might be best for you.

9. Mindset by Carol Dweck.  The most important attribute for trading success, is improving each day.  Markets change.  Strategies work and then don’t.  Traders must embrace getting better each day over PnL.  This is how you become great.  This is how you sustain.

10. The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg.  Your PnL is the reflection of the best practices you turn into habit as a trader.  This book teaches traders how to build excellent habits.

11. One Good Trade, Mike Bellafiore. The day I went to City Hall for my marriage license, I met with a prominent managing partner at a large Australian prop desk.  He had read One Good Trade and wanted to meet while visiting NYC.  He said something I will never forget and perhaps has become the legacy of this book, “I was going to write a book.  But then I read One Good Trade and you had already written mine.”  One Good Trade has become globally the go-to-book for many prop shops- the book you are encouraged to read when you are beginning your career as a proprietary trader.

12. Technical Analysis on Multiple Time Frames, Brian Shannon.  Straightforward advice on how to use technical analysis to gain trading edge.

13. Peak Performance Trading and Investing by Bruce Bower.  An experienced, hedge fund trader who has also read everything on trading/investing offers the latest important contribution to the trading community with this new book.  Tap into the principles of elite performance to trade/invest better.

What books would you add to this list?

*no relevant positions

*my apologies to the hundreds of awesome other trading books that are not on this list.  And our gratitude for your contribution to the trading community.