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Truly arriving at a trading strategy takes time. And by arriving I mean to truly live it. Investing (value, Graham, etc.) — No Thank You It took me approx 3 years to somewhat arrive at mine. My journey started from the world of value investing. I read Intelligent Investor a few times (not in complete detail as I skipped some parts), but re-visited it a few times with Jason Zweig’s commentary. From there I moved to the Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman and to the books of Joel Greenblatt. What a waste of time (except for Joel Greenblatt’s books more on that late). Trading It wasn’t until I discovered Mark Minervini first, and then William O’Neil, Jesse Livermore, Chris Kacher / Gil Morale’s books, and Jesse Stine that it finally began to make sense & come together. Honorable mention — Chris Camilo and how he made his millions — I wouldn’t recommend his approach but his research market research methods of consumer trends is useful. Mark Minervini I came across Mark Minervini’s books from a some random podcast (not chat with traders) but one that I can’t even find now. It was a German trader living in Thailand and trading for a living and he recommended Mark Minervini. This was around 2019. The thing with Mark’s books is that you have to read them a few times, take notes, write down the strategy, and then live it. You will then realize you missed or forgot or broke dicipline a few times (that is if you monitor your trade history) and then hopefully correct it. And then every now and then re-visit his books. I didn’t many of these things immediately. It took me almost a year to become diciplined and implement Mark’s teachings. I am still working on it. Finally, I recommend Minervini’s latest book Mindset Secrets of Winning. This book is not a trading book. But, if you really want to win in this game you need: 1) Discipline 2) Discipline 3) Discipline 4) Passion 5) Not Giving Up O’Neil Gang Next I was introduced to the world of O’Neil. There are many famous and helpful traders on Twitter who speak of his methods. This book is a classic and should be read by all traders. And then in rapid succession I read about Darvas, Livermore, and then very recently Gil Morales and Chris Kacher (O’Neil disciples with their own twist) . Again, I found this to be very useful and Gil/Chris’s pocket pivots and buyable gap ups etc. are very useful. Darvas and Livermore Most people don’t mention this often so you may have not heard of these books by Darvas and Livermore, but I find them more useful than their more famous books: You Can Still Make It In The Market — by Darvas How To Trade In Stocks — Livermore Conclusion Books by Joel Greenblatt are really good and worth it. It’s like getting an MBA in investing — you know mergers and acquisitions, how business work, competitive moat etc. But, I realized that for small time “investors”/”traders” being an investor and making bIg money is an oxymoron. If you are starting with less than 100K good luck value investing and compounding your gains. All this value investing stuff including Joel’s is for people looking to preserve wealth not build wealth. Small traders need to compound their money as fast as possible. So don’t waste your time and focus on the traders mentioned here. It has taken me 3 years to come to this conclusion. This is primarily because of the snobby attitude of the “investing” community towards traders and technical analysis. Fortunately, Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards series shed some light on these traders including Minervini and I began looking into them in 2019. Authors you must read and internalize in order of priority for beginners: 1- O’Neil — easy simple ready. 2- Minervini — heavy stuff but read it multiple times. 3- Darvas and Jack Schwager for motivation and inspiration. 4- Chris Kacher and Gil Morales books once you have figured out O’Neil.
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