Market Mind Games: A Radical Psychology of Investing, Trading and Risk Hardcover – January 5, 2012

The first thing I noticed was the use of language in Denise Shull's writing style. There was something off about the words and the sentence structure. At first I thought it may just be a representation of how her mind works. I have been fascinated lately to read the research on writing or talking style algorithms indicating mental illness or diseases of the mind. Then, I considered it may be an attempt to use Neural Linguistic Processing techniques to sell readers on her concepts and services. Neither were important enough mysteries for me to research to a final learned conclusion. Once noticed, her style was easy enough to discern and discount. However, the constant negative priming used for the vast majority of back story descriptions was difficult to overlook or ignore. A feeling of, "something is really wrong with me", crept into my awareness as I read each negative prime. I was left hungry for some positive solutions to these negative descriptions. Was this another "psychologist" marketing ploy, attempting to move readers to take action? I found her use of acronyms an attempt to brand her concepts distracting and much preferred her usage of the actual psychological terminology. I very much appreciated the research she referenced and followed up finding it on the net.I found aspects of the book that resonated with my own self development as a trader to which I was able to add deeper meaning. Writing style and presentation left me asking if Denise Shull is the right person for the job? My best advice is when searching for a psychologist, psychotherapist or psychiatrist, make certain they are licensed and in good standing with their state board. And, they use methods accepted within the professionally licensed community.At age 13, I had become interested in the commodity markets growing up on the farm and started hand charting the OHLC as reported on the radio and recorded by my mother each day, after my father had passed away. I started farming in high school and learned to "read" the news teletype at the community college I attended. After graduating from a Land Grant College, was exposed to the services of Data Transmission Network providing quotes, charts, news, weather forecasts, govt. reports, and marketing newsletters. This exposed me to the near real time movements of the markets, forming associations between events and outcomes in the price movement, and cyclical movement of MY emotions and interpersonal relationships. Those attributions were checked over and over as they unfolded in time. Misattributions and false attributions were actively searched for and reframed into a more positive construct. I read about the methods used by the newsletters to forecast the markets and went to the source to learn about Gann, Elliott Wave, fibinacci, cycles, kondrateiv cycle, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, market internals, astro meteorology, astro finance and any aspect of forecasting I could find. I have put in Gladwell's 10,000 hours to mastery. I have found I was building scenarios before I read "The Art of the Longview", yet I was able to create a written outline perfecting my method. I found I was intuitively asking questions that could be answered on a time line as described In "Superforecasting", yet I was able to add numbers to my intuitive methods. I could ingnore the markets for great lengths of time, until one day I may hear or read something that would cause me to take a closed look. Typically two or three weeks from a low. I realized many years ago that the reason to study analysis method is to explicitly learn the associations related to perception of the markets, and after many hours of proper study and implicit knowledge is formed. It was intuitive when it happened to me , but it was still a conscious decision to allow myself, to ALLOW that inner implicit "ideomotor type' of felt sense to have meaning in the decision to take action. There is no better feeling that being in the heat of battle when in FLOW while trading.My conclusion is there is no quick fix, it takes 10,000 hours of proper attributioanal work to form the trader-market-trader(S) associations AND the inner integration of developing explicit / implicit trust.At age 13, I had become interested in the commodity markets growing up on the farm and started hand charting the OHLC as reported on the radio and recorded by my mother each day, after my father had passed away. I started farming in high school and learned to "read" the news teletype at the community college I attended. After graduating from a Land Grant College, was exposed to the services of Data Transmission Network providing quotes, charts, news, weather forecasts, govt. reports, and marketing newsletters. This exposed me to the near real time movements of the markets, forming associations between events and outcomes in the price movement, and cyclical movement of MY emotions and interpersonal relationships. Those attributions were checked over and over as they unfolded in time. Misattributions and false attributions were actively searched for and reframed into a more positive construct. I read about the methods used by the newsletters to forecast the markets and went to the source to learn about Gann, Elliott Wave, fibinacci, cycles, kondrateiv cycle, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, market internals, astro meteorology, astro finance and any aspect of forecasting I could find. I have put in Gladwell's 10,000 hours to mastery. I have found I was building scenarios before I read "The Art of the Longview", yet I was able to create a written outline perfecting my method. I found I was intuitively asking questions that could be answered on a time line as described In "Superforecasting", yet I was able to add numbers to my intuitive methods. I could ingnore the markets for great lengths of time, until one day I may hear or read something that would cause me to take a closed look. Typically two or three weeks from a low. I realized many years ago that the reason to study analysis method is to explicitly learn the associations related to perception of the markets, and after many hours of proper study and implicit knowledge is formed. It was intuitive when it happened to me , but it was still a conscious decision to allow myself, to ALLOW that inner implicit "ideomotor type' of felt sense to have meaning in the decision to take action. There is no better feeling that being in FLOW while trading.My conclusion is there is no quick fix, it takes 10,000 hours of proper attributioanal work to form the trader-market-traderS associations AND the inner integration of developing explicit / implicit trust. Or, as Kahnman may put it, training level 1 awareness thru level 2 cognitive processes, while training level 2 cognitive processes thru level1 awareness. The ability to be aware of cognitive dissonance, suspend disbelief, conduct a derivational search for context thru active open mindedness, consciously negotiate bias filters to form or reframe attributions, while building self confidence to experiment trusting that ideomotor felt sense to BUY or SELL. Being in the zone, where money management risk numbers, price movement risk numbers, are instantly integrated into an autonomic felt sense ideomotor movement to BUY or SELL.

Simply brilliant! First few chapters are hard to read and may require re-reading while Denise establishes the foundation of her approach/ theory. But once you get through this part, the book is just an impeccable manifesto of how to master trading via mastering your own emotional and feeling context of your own decision making. As a trader, this made perfect sense to me than any other psychology book I have read and I have read a lot!

Thinking, Fast and Slow  by Daniel Kahneman &  Market Mind Games: A Radical Psychology of Investing, Trading and Risk  by Denise ShullTogether, these two books may just represent a complete summation of the current state-of-the art in trading psychology. Daniel Kahneman (D.K.) is like the venerable grandfather of the not-so-young "new science" of Behavioral Economics. Reading this book is a real treat...as if D.K. were perhaps your own grandfather imparting the best wisdom of his years.There really is not much new content in the book, per se. What makes the book valuable is the fact that D.K. has taken the chance towards the end of his career to offer a comprehensive overview of his (and others) ground-breaking work spanning over a half a century. If you are a professional in the field, you likely have been aware of these concepts since they were first shared in professional journals in the 70's and 80's. Otherwise, you've probably never had such an opportunity to have the important discoveries made by D.K and his cohorts explained so thoroughly and eloquently.Mostly, the book is about the many odd ways in which the way people think diverges from what they actually do. Through many examples, D.K. illustrates that man is often apparently an "irrational actor" which stands in sharp contrast to the "rational actor" which is a crucial assumption of the long-dominant Efficient Market Theory. When you consider that Efficient Market Theory is still taught with a straight face in all Business Schools, and despite the fact D.K. won the Nobel Prize ten years ago his work could actually still be considered cutting-edge.But if you want to know where the bleeding-edge of trading psychology is today, Denise Shull (D.S.) appears to have a corner on the market. While D.K. and his peers were fascinated with thinking and behavior, they seem to have entirely overlooked the all-important third element ~ feelings or emotion. I suppose it makes sense, seeing as they were of the John Wayne-era where feelings were considered a thing to be hidden or controlled. But this oversight cost them the prize. Amazingly, D.K. concedes at the end of the book that despite all he has discovered, he can offer nothing in the way of advice as to how to change one's behavior to where it is more reflective of one's actual best interests and desires.Fortunately, this gaping void is where D.S.'s work picks up. In Market Mind Games she describes through a multi-faceted narrative how feelings can serve as the key to unlock many of the mysteries concerning the way our minds work and how it can influence our behavior. Not only do our feelings from our past shape how we behave in the present, D.S. shows how our feelings in the present can be a guide along the path that puts our actions back into alignment with our best interests. In the future, the wisdom of following your feelings will be more widely understood and the changes it will bring to many of our institutions will be profound. For now, be thankful that D.S. is here to share this essential piece of the puzzle with traders who are looking to close the gap between what they think they should do and what they actually do.Many have made the comparison between being a fighter pilot and a trader. If that is the analogy, D.K.'s book is the manual to explain how the plane works and D.S.'s book is the pilot trailing guide that explains how to actually fly the plane. Reading these two books together, you really are getting a pretty complete synopsis of what is currently known about how our minds influence our behavior and how to leverage that knowledge into better performance.

As the saying goes..20% strategy, 80% psychology!If your serious about trading this is a must read for traders of any experience!The key concept in this actually redefines what you’ve read in probably every other trading book...control your emotions.In a way it brings in some of the concepts similar to mindfulness, feel the feelings but don’t become the emotion. Witness it, analyze it and release it.After reading this I guarantee you’ll think about the way you trade from a different viewpoint, who knew that your childhood experiences would be reflected in your trading!

Well this is certainly interesting, Denise shull certainly knows what she is talking about. There's a massive amount of information in a single book. this isn't only good for a trader or investor but for a good psychology book

Cut through all the snake oil salesmen of systems and trading courses - get to know your own self - this is a must read for anyone who aspires and struggles or even suceeds to make money from speculating in markets. at last an honest no nonsense (ie trade without emotion! to do that you'd have to be dead!) book about the most important part of trading - managing your own mind and expectations.

During the first few chapters, the author uses language that fails to quickly communicate what she wants, going around in a complicated way, too painful to follow. As the book evolves entering the main point of unconscious fractal geometry affecting trading behavior/decision making the book offers a very insightful theory.

Informative book on trading