Bulletproof Trader
Evidence-based strategies for overcoming setbacks and sustaining high performance in the markets
1st Edition
Published on 23. June 2020
192 pages
978-0-85719-668-2 (ISBN)
Description
Trading can be intensely rewarding. But it is also one of the most mentally and emotionally challenging activities anyone can pursue. As in other high-performance domains, those who are serious about mastering their craft and staying in the game spend serious time working on their game, including training their mind and body.
Steve Ward has spent the last 15 years working as a performance coach with financial traders and investors at some of the biggest and most successful investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers, commodities trading houses and proprietary trading groups across the globe, helping them to perform at their best, to navigate the highs and lows of trading and investing in the markets, and to sustain high performance for the long run.
As one hedge fund client put it to him, "It's about becoming bulletproof".
Becoming a bulletproof trader is forged over time through experience, and by applying the latest insights from biological and psychological sciences, the best that practical philosophy can teach us, and a healthy dose of pragmatism - doing what actually works in the real world of trading the markets.
This book brings together all of Steve's latest insights into how to deal with stresses and setbacks and sustain high performance in a comprehensive, accessible and unmissable book, so that you too can become a bulletproof trader.
Don't trade without it.
More details
Person
Steve Ward specialises in helping people working in trading, investing and banking to enhance their risk-taking, improve their decision-making and to achieve and sustain high performance by utilising the latest science, research and practice from performance psychology, decision science, neuroscience, behavioural science, physiology and philosophy.
Since 2005 he has provided specialised coaching, training and consultancy services to traders and fund managers at some of the largest and highest-performing investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers, commodities trading houses, utility companies and proprietary trading groups across the globe.
Prior to starting his work with the financial sector, Steve provided sports psychology coaching to elite athletes and teams in over 30 different sports across the globe, with a particular interest in extreme, action and adventure sports. He has also provided psychological coaching for professional poker players.
Steve is the author of High-Performance Trading: 35 Practical Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Your Trading Psychology and Performance, Sports Betting to Win: The 10 Keys to Disciplined and Profitable Betting and TraderMind: Get a Mindful Edge in the Markets, and has written many articles for leading trading publications. He co-managed a team of 45 proprietary traders in London, was the consultant trading performance coach to the BBC TV series Million Dollar Traders, and spent a number of years trading stock indices and FX in his own account.
www.performanceedgeconsulting.co.uk
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- About the Author
- Preface: A Guide to this Book
- Part One: Becoming Bulletproof
- 1. Why Bulletproof?
- Coaching traders
- What brings you here?
- 2. The Bulletproof Framework
- The key requirements
- The four foundations of bulletproof trading
- Getting the most from this book
- A future bulletproof trader: you
- Part Two: Ups and Downs
- 3. The Nature of Trading
- Trading as a high-performance activity
- The trading performance environment
- Ups and downs
- 4. Get Good at the Downs
- The pain of loss
- The inner citadel
- Getting good at the downs
- Part Three: Commitment
- 5. Mindset Over Matter
- Your trading mindset
- Getting good at stress
- Losses, mistakes and setbacks
- A worthy rival
- Developing a bulletproof mindset
- 6. Take Committed Action
- The motivation trap
- From motivation to commitment
- Committed action
- Poise - the art of disciplined trading
- Perseverance - keeping going when the going gets tough
- Strengthening commitment
- 7. Know Your Values
- A different approach
- The value of values
- Building patterns of values-based committed action
- Values, stress and difficulty
- Part Four: Risk and Uncertainty
- 8. Manage Your Risk
- Risk, stress and trading decisions
- The art of optimal risk-taking
- Risk-aware decision-making
- 9. Embrace Uncertainty
- Which box?
- Markets, traders and uncertainty
- Impermanence
- Practising uncertainty
- This is what happens in the bathhouse
- 10. Plan for the Worst
- Prepare for success
- What if?
- If-then
- The pre-mortem
- Part Five: Focus
- 11. Train Your Attention
- Attention matters
- Training attention
- Attention-training builds present-moment awareness
- Responding vs reacting
- The observer
- 12. Focus on the Process
- Best decision vs worst decision
- Our obsession with results
- Process focus
- From P&L-focused to process-focused
- Becoming more process-focused
- 13. Control the Controllables
- Uncontrollability, stress and the markets
- The dichotomy of control
- A speedboat driver joins the crew of an oil tanker
- The CIA framework
- With controllability comes responsibility - and response-ability
- Part Six: Discomfort
- 14. Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
- The discomforts of trading
- Aversion and the costs of avoiding discomfort
- The upside of discomfort
- Willingness: exposure in action
- Developing willingness: getting good at discomfort
- Practising willingness and discomfort
- 15. Unhook from Difficult Thoughts
- Thinking about your thinking
- Don't think of a white bear
- Letting go of the struggle
- 1. Awareness
- 2. Workability
- 3. Defusion
- 4. Action
- 16. Work With Your Stress-Based Emotions
- Trading, like life, is emotional
- A trader works with anxiety
- Working with emotions
- Part Seven: Confidence
- 17. Build Confidence in Coping With Difficulty
- What is confidence?
- Demands vs resources
- I can deal with difficult trading situations
- The confidence gap: taking action
- 18. Stay Calm in Critical Moments
- Composure builds confidence
- Putting the brakes on
- Tactical breathing strategies
- 19. Don't Beat Yourself Up
- Harsh trading critic or compassionate trading coach?
- What is self-compassion?
- The benefits of self-compassion
- Practising self-compassion, enhancing confidence
- Part Eight: Flexibility
- 20. Find the Opportunity in the Difficult
- Negativity bias
- Finding the opportunity
- Learning vs earning
- The view from above
- What would a role model do?
- 21. Get Good at Adapting to Change
- Change is inevitable
- Floored: survival of the most adaptable
- Survival is not mandatory
- The futures lab
- Adapting to new markets effectively
- Part Nine: State Management
- 22. Monitor Your Stress and Fatigue Levels
- The physiology of trading performance
- Fatigue makes cowards of us all
- Stress-induced irrational pessimism
- Objective physiological feedback
- State management
- 23. Master the Art of Recovery
- Adaptive toughness and supercompensation
- Getting the stress-recovery balance right
- What is recovery?
- Switching off to switch on: recovery strategies
- Tactical recovery
- 24. Develop Your Physiological Fitness
- Physical fitness and stress resilience
- Physical activity as stress management
- Trading well
- The physiological platform
- Conclusion
- 25. The End - and a Beginning
- Acknowledgements
- Publishing details
