As a Product Coach, it’s my job to help MarketSmith members use our powerful research tools to be successful in the market. Usually I do this by demonstrating how I use the tools and by passing along what I’ve learned from studying the market. To do this job well, I read a lot of investing-related books, and occasionally I like to pass along some of the better ones.

First of all I want to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Pit Bull, Lessons from Wall Street’s Champion Trader” and recommend it to anyone interested in trading or the stock market. This biography follows the trading career of Martin “Buzzy” Schwartz, from his very first trade from the floor of the American Stock Exchange to winning the U.S. Investing Championship to trading OPM (other people’s money) as a hedge fund manager. The book reads as if Schwartz was wearing a GoPro helmet camera as he went to battle the market each day. Being a very honest and detailed account of his successes and failures, I took away many great lessons. These are the ones that struck me most:

• The characteristics of a good trader – What made Marty a good trader was being good with numbers, being a gambler by nature, knowing how to operate under fire, and understanding the importance of money management.

• Goal setting – To be successful, it’s important to first define what success is. Writing down your goals enables you to continually remind yourself what you are working towards. Once you have a goal, break the goal up into smaller steps and assign yourself a time frame for each step in the plan to keep yourself focused.

• Preparation – “Don’t get in a shootout if you’ve left your guns at home.” Unless you’ve done the proper research, and you understand the current state of the market, don’t trade. There are plenty of ways of gaining an edge, but they all involve spending time in off-market hours: researching the fundamentals, studying charts, and planning your trades by marking up chart with trend lines, and support and resistance levels.

• Trusting your instinct – Along with experience comes instinct. Confidence is something that rises and falls along with your success, but you must have confidence in your instinct to be a successful trader.

• Work-life balance – When you are trying and trying to get ahead, sometimes the best way to improve your performance as a trader is to step back and actually spend less time and energy. Even if the markets are your passion, becoming consumed by them can hurt your performance and even your health. To be a good trader you need to stay in good physical and mental health. You can’t stay in good health if you don’t occasionally put yourself in neutral and give yourself a break.

If you are interested in reading “Pitbull,” you can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Pit-Bull-Lessons-Streets-Champion/dp/0887309569/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1355773110&sr=8-4&keywords=pit+bull  

Best Returns,

Richard

MarketSmith Product Coach

Thanks. I'm always looking for a good read.

hmm u might want to add that he used a lot of leverage to get rich ;)