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The Inner Voice of Trading: Eliminate the Noise, and Profit from the Strategies That Are Right for You
Want to be a successful trader? It's not enough to master generic trading you must first know yourself. You must understand your own emotional predilections and psychological tendencies. You must learn how to match your strategies to your own personality. You must choose strategies that are sustainable over the long haul, that you can tolerate–and execute . Michael Martin's The Inner Voice of Trading explains why deep self-knowledge is so crucial to successful trading, helps you gain that self-knowledge, and guides you in applying it. Drawing on interviews and discussions with great traders like Michael Marcus and Ed Seykota, he shows how to quiet your mind, develop an "inner voice" you can rely on, and make it your most important trading ally. As seen in Barron's, Minyanville.com and HuffingtonPost.com
179 pages, Hardcover
First published August 30, 2011
35 people are currently reading
160 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 25, 2021
1. Surrendering your ego - keeping your losses small.
To pursue trading professionally, one has to lose his/her way to profitability. In order to develop your own inner voice, one must pay emotional and financial tuition fees to the market.
"Trading requires an intense personal involvement. You have to do your own homework and in the process you will develop your inner voice of trading."
"When the majority of stocks lose money, you need to focus on “not losing.”" Basically in my book, think about how the stock is going to F me before entry.
A quote from Schwager’s Market Wizard book that the author referenced gave me a pause for moment to ponder.. "When asked to explain what was important to success, the market wizards never talked about indicators or techniques, but rather about such things as discipline, emotional control, patience, and mental attitude toward losing. The message is clear: the key to winning in the markets is internal, not external."
The author also borrowed quotes from one of his mentor, Ed Seykota taught him is that a good stop order “is placed at the price where [you’re] willing to transfer the risk to someone else.”
In a gist, after all these summaries of quote take-aways, it is clear that the book suggest nothing about developing your self-awareness, controlling your emotion, mind and having the discipline to cut losers.
To pursue trading professionally, one has to lose his/her way to profitability. In order to develop your own inner voice, one must pay emotional and financial tuition fees to the market.
"Trading requires an intense personal involvement. You have to do your own homework and in the process you will develop your inner voice of trading."
"When the majority of stocks lose money, you need to focus on “not losing.”" Basically in my book, think about how the stock is going to F me before entry.
A quote from Schwager’s Market Wizard book that the author referenced gave me a pause for moment to ponder.. "When asked to explain what was important to success, the market wizards never talked about indicators or techniques, but rather about such things as discipline, emotional control, patience, and mental attitude toward losing. The message is clear: the key to winning in the markets is internal, not external."
The author also borrowed quotes from one of his mentor, Ed Seykota taught him is that a good stop order “is placed at the price where [you’re] willing to transfer the risk to someone else.”
In a gist, after all these summaries of quote take-aways, it is clear that the book suggest nothing about developing your self-awareness, controlling your emotion, mind and having the discipline to cut losers.
December 16, 2013
This book is unlike any trading book I have ever read so far. It is obvious that the author is an actual trader and he shares some great, practical insights into how to become a better trader (particularly from emotional standpoint). I enjoyed this book and will likely read it again some time in the future. Recommended for those who are not complete beginners and can better understand how the author achieved his insights.
July 1, 2020
The most useful advices from this book:
1.Meditation can train your self-awareness;
2.Always remember to keep your loss small;
1.Meditation can train your self-awareness;
2.Always remember to keep your loss small;
April 5, 2024
This book presents two important ideas:
1. Trading is more than finding a mathematical expectancy. Trading is deeply personal, and the strategies you employ in the market must be a reflection of your attitudes, beliefs and personality.
I agree deeply with this concept. I experienced first-hand how even with a statistically meaningful strategy, money can elude you. I remember incurring 16 losses in a row on a strategy I know the author had used to make a fortune and had taught others to make a fortune with, and I could not help but feel devastated. However, as soon as I did my own work, I found myself in profit. It was like an overnight switch. This experience showed me that I had a breadth of knowledge laboring beneath the surface and doing my own work and research is what unlocked it. If I had just listened to my results at the time, I would have quit.
2. Traders should pay a lot of attention to their emotions.
We like to think of ourselves as rationally-driven creatures, but evidence from psychology (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/sc...) show that emotion plays a critical role in guiding our reason. It's the same in trading. Behind the 'rational' trader who keeps his losses in check are emotions of pain, regret, fear and shame. Behind the 'disciplined' trader who executes without hesitation is hope (yes, hope. you can only maintain discipline if you believe that repeated execution would eventually lead to a positive result; therefore, you must have hope that difficult actions will lead to positive results because nothing is guaranteed). The trader must also conquer counterproductive emotions. He must quiet his fear, mute his greed, ignore shame. I do not spend enough time doing this, and this book will guide me toward improving on that front.
I rate this book two stars because aside from the two important points above, I find it a largely incoherent, random and vague collection of ideas. The writer has flash but lacks direction and substance. He is also way too confident in some of his assertions as to how trading works. I don't care if George Soros says that trading is about keeping your losses small and your winners big; I know there are perfectly acceptable trading systems with 1:1 profit-to-loss ratios that can make you a lot of money.
Maybe worth reading for the two points above, but there are perhaps better books to deal with the emotional side of trading. What the f*ck is an 'inner voice' anyway?
1. Trading is more than finding a mathematical expectancy. Trading is deeply personal, and the strategies you employ in the market must be a reflection of your attitudes, beliefs and personality.
I agree deeply with this concept. I experienced first-hand how even with a statistically meaningful strategy, money can elude you. I remember incurring 16 losses in a row on a strategy I know the author had used to make a fortune and had taught others to make a fortune with, and I could not help but feel devastated. However, as soon as I did my own work, I found myself in profit. It was like an overnight switch. This experience showed me that I had a breadth of knowledge laboring beneath the surface and doing my own work and research is what unlocked it. If I had just listened to my results at the time, I would have quit.
2. Traders should pay a lot of attention to their emotions.
We like to think of ourselves as rationally-driven creatures, but evidence from psychology (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/sc...) show that emotion plays a critical role in guiding our reason. It's the same in trading. Behind the 'rational' trader who keeps his losses in check are emotions of pain, regret, fear and shame. Behind the 'disciplined' trader who executes without hesitation is hope (yes, hope. you can only maintain discipline if you believe that repeated execution would eventually lead to a positive result; therefore, you must have hope that difficult actions will lead to positive results because nothing is guaranteed). The trader must also conquer counterproductive emotions. He must quiet his fear, mute his greed, ignore shame. I do not spend enough time doing this, and this book will guide me toward improving on that front.
I rate this book two stars because aside from the two important points above, I find it a largely incoherent, random and vague collection of ideas. The writer has flash but lacks direction and substance. He is also way too confident in some of his assertions as to how trading works. I don't care if George Soros says that trading is about keeping your losses small and your winners big; I know there are perfectly acceptable trading systems with 1:1 profit-to-loss ratios that can make you a lot of money.
Maybe worth reading for the two points above, but there are perhaps better books to deal with the emotional side of trading. What the f*ck is an 'inner voice' anyway?
February 13, 2024
As an Audiobook 3.4/5
I have already listened to a significant amount of Martin's content as Podcasts, it's and older book, I was not able to find much new and useful information in it, that he has not already communicated in his show.
The principles in it still are sound and correct. It's also well written.
I have already listened to a significant amount of Martin's content as Podcasts, it's and older book, I was not able to find much new and useful information in it, that he has not already communicated in his show.
The principles in it still are sound and correct. It's also well written.
May 3, 2022
Great book
A must read (re-read) every year for all traders no matter the market and the trading style. The best in its class
A must read (re-read) every year for all traders no matter the market and the trading style. The best in its class
June 15, 2020
Originally read this in 2015, and I loved it then. I just reread it now in 2020, during COVID lockdown, and loved it even more. Absolutely tore through it. I think this is a severely underrated trading book. And Michael Martin is an often overlooked trading mind. But those who know, know. This book takes a different angle than so many other trading books. It's essentially a psychology book, but not full of wishy washy crap like so many of the others. This is a "Zen and the Art of TradIng" book for real. Super recommended.
April 25, 2012
Even if it is the only book I read so far about trading, I found this collection of essays very well written, to the point and supported by real life experiences.
December 22, 2019
The use of the word surrender makes this book an outstanding read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews