FOREWORD

The great bull market in stocks has led to an equally great bull market in the number of books published on the subject of how to make money trading the markets. Many ideas abound, some good, some not, some original, some just a repackaging of earlier works. Occasionally, though, a writer comes forward with something that really sets him or her apart from the pack, something special. One such writer is Mark Douglas.

Mark Douglas, in Trading in the Zone, has written a book that is the accumulation of years of thought and research—the work of a lifetime—and for those of us who view trading as a profession, he has produced a gem.

Trading in the Zone is an in-depth look at the challenges that we face when we take up the challenge of trading. To the novice, the only challenge appears to be to find a way to make money. Once the novice learns that tips, brokers’ advice, and other ways to justify buying or selling do not work consistently, he discovers that he either needs to develop a reliable trading strategy or purchase one. After that, trading should be easy, right? All you have to do is follow the rules, and the money will fall into your lap.

At this point, if not before, novices discover that trading can turn into one of the most frustrating experiences they will ever face. This experience leads to the oft-stated statistic that 95 percent of futures traders lose all of their money within the first year of trading. Stock traders generally experience the same results, which is why pundits always point to the fact that most stock traders fail to out-perform a simple buy and hold investment scenario.

So, why do people, the majority of whom are extremely successful in other occupations, fail so miserably as traders? Are successful traders born and not made? Mark Douglas says no. What’s necessary, he says, is that the individual acquire the trader’s mindset. It sounds easy, but the fact is, this mindset is very foreign when compared with the way our life experiences teach us to think about the world.

That 95-percent failure rate makes sense when you consider how most of us experience life, using skills learned as we grow. When it comes to trading, however, it turns out that the skills we learn to earn high marks in school, advance our careers, and create relationships with other people, the skills we are taught that should carry us through life, turn out to be inappropriate for trading. Traders, we find out, must learn to think in terms of probabilities and to surrender all of the skills we have acquired to achieve in virtually every other aspect of our lives. In Trading in the Zone, Mark Douglas teaches us how. He has put together a very valuable book. His sources are his own personal experiences as a trader, a trader’s coach in Chicago, author, and lecturer in his field of trading psychology.

My recommendation? Enjoy Douglas’s Trading in the Zone and, in doing so, develop a trader’s mindset.

THOM HARTLE