# Books on trading psychology



## ronski456 (18 July 2009)

Could anyone please recommend to me a book on trading psychology?

I am more interested in resources on contrarian trading rather than books on sticking to a trading plan and taking losses, etc.

Anything on the psychology of crowd behaviour and collective financial psychology.

Cheers.


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## cutz (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*



ronski456 said:


> Could anyone please recommend to me a book on trading psychology?




I found The Psychology of Finance - L. Tvede to be useful.


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## kincella (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*

Darryl Guppy's book 'The 36 strategies of the chinese..for the financial trader', is probably just one book...and covers both your requirments...

for eg; Deceiving heaven to cross the sea....Besieging Wei to save Zhao...Killing with a borrowed knife....Conserving energy while the enemy tires himself out...Looting a house on fire....Creating something out of nothing...A dagger sheathed in a smile...Hitting the grass to startle the snake

"Its a living philosophy studied and applied everyday with skill and determination...
it is an ancient and classical text..with no single author..a compilation of political and military strategies dating back more than 1800 years"

the chinese were the first traders who crossed the earth .....probably the best teachers for any trading
cheers


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## Mr J (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*



kincella said:


> the chinese were the first traders who crossed the earth .....probably the best teachers for any tradingcheers




In what way were they the first traders, and in what way did they cross the Earth? I would agree that general chinese texts would be best for psychology as there is always an emphasis on the big picture, but I would think as far as historical trading texts go, the Italians would win hands down.


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## tech/a (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*



Mr J said:


> In what way were they the first traders, and in what way did they cross the Earth? I would agree that general chinese texts would be best for psychology as there is always an emphasis on the big picture, but I would think as far as historical trading texts go, the Italians would win hands down.




Marco polo.
Think Traders of goods.


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## jono1887 (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*



tech/a said:


> Marco polo.
> Think Traders of goods.




Marco Polo wasn't Chinese - he was a European explorer. Not even a trader was he?


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## kincella (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*

Marco Polo about 1254....bit late....try about 30,000BC....
Actually...since my last PC died last year....lost my references for the research I was doing....about when the Chinese first travelled the world trading their goods with the rest of the world.....there are chinese artifacts world wide that have been dug up and dated by archiologists....fascinating stuff....but the europeans attempted to hide it and ignore the facts for far too long....that in fact it was the asians who went to most places first...long before the europeans......
it was Darryl Guppy's book that got me interested...
how do you think they traded...or travelled....easy, exchange some food for tools maybe.....travel by boat...or overland  


"DOUGLAS WALLACE (University of California, Irvine): So what we've been able to do, using genetic variation and comparing the genetic variation of aboriginal populations from all the major continents of the world, we've literally been able to reconstruct the history of migration.

NARRATOR: When Wallace and his team analyzed the mitochondrial DNA of Native Americans, they found four distinctive lineages that he labeled A, B, C and D. All four turned out to share common ancestors back in Siberia and northeast Asia. 

So far, these findings were consistent with the Clovis First theory that the first Americans came from Asia. But when Wallace calculated how long ago the Asian and Native American DNA diverged, he was shocked. He repeated his work, as did other labs. The results were consistent. Three of the four main ancestral groups A, C and D, diverged from their Asian forbears at least 20,000 years ago. And even more striking, the first Americans didn't all come at once, but in at least three waves of migration.

DOUGLAS WALLACE: All of the papers that have been published have come to a very similar conclusion: that the first migration was in the order of 20- to 30,000 years ago."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3116_stoneage.html


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## kincella (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*

a summary of the last thread...same reference

NARRATOR: Perhaps this is the birth of an intriguing new theory for the peopling of America: the first Stone Age explorers arrive on this continent more than 20,000 years ago, much earlier than scientists ever imagined. They come from Asia, and maybe even Europe, by land and by sea. Tenuously, at first, these different groups spread across the virgin land, and over thousands of years they develop an intimate knowledge of the New World. Around 13,500 years ago, a stone weapon is invented, so powerful, so crucial to survival that it spreads swiftly across all the people of the Americas. With this new technology they take root, proliferate and prosper. Clovis is the first great invention of the New World and the icon of the peoples who may rightfully be called the first Americans.


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## tech/a (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*



jono1887 said:


> Marco Polo wasn't Chinese - he was a European explorer. Not even a trader was he?




Silk Road China.


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## Timmy (18 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psychology*



ronski456 said:


> Anything on the psychology of crowd behaviour and collective financial psychology.




Two of the old standbys in this category are:

_Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_  by Charles Mackay

and

_The Crowd_ by Gustav Le Bon.

I have read _Extraordinary Popular Delusions_, and recommend it, but I haven't read _The Crowd_.

These are two that immediately spring to mind.


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## MRC & Co (19 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psychology*

I think one of the best, if not the best and probably not percieved by many to be a book on this subject, is "The Alchemy of Finance".  

Soros is really just looking at what is constantly the underlying mover of markets and how events are being percieved.  Always contrain, always anticipating.


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## tech/a (19 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psychology*



> Soros is really just looking at what is constantly the underlying mover of markets and how events are being percieved. Always contrain, always anticipating.




Always on the right side of a prolonged move in his direction.


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## Mr J (19 July 2009)

*Re: Trading Psycholoy*



tech/a said:


> Marco polo.
> Think Traders of goods.




He was an Italian and during the Renaissance - a time when Italian merchants ruled the Mediterranean. The Silk Road also wasn't Chinese, it crossed Asia. If anyone dominated it, it was those in Western Asia, linking Europe to East Asia.


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