The Holy Grail of Investing

In this short video Ray Dalio explains what he believes its his Holy Grail in trading.



While Indiana Jones might have found it safely tucked away in the Temple of the Sun, to legendary investor Ray Dalio, the "Holy Grail" is a sweet spot between diversification and correlation.

Source: Investopedia

Ray Dalio Mentoring Diddy (video)

Sean Combs, also known as Diddy, asked me to mentor him to help him take his great success to another level. In this video you will see a recent mentor session of ours, and you will see a Diddy that you probably haven’t seen before. We explore the role of radical open mindedness, building an effective team, and the importance of using the 5-step process for success that I've outlined in my books, Principles: Life & Work and Principles for Success. You will also see why I want to help him and why I believe our relationship exemplifies how people with different backgrounds and different perspectives can work together harmoniously for the greater good. The greatest joy I’m having now is helping other people to be successful, particularly helping people who can help a lot of people.

The Big Bet That Failed

Long before I reached success as the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund today, I faced several failures. But through my struggles, I was able to accumulate hundreds of principles.

Here's a big bet that failed: Ray Dalio on his big bet that failed: ‘I went broke and had to borrow $4,000 from my dad’

Best Of Finance Twitter (Nov 29th)

=> "The MSCI Chile Index in #USD is down 36 percent since February!" - Jeroen Blokland, Multi-asset investor at Robeco.

=> 'More than 200 of the bonds in the Ice index are trading with yields more than 10% above equivalent government bonds — a commonly used definition of distress. That share now stands at 11.6% of the index, the highest proportion since 2016.' - Jesse Felder, publisher of the Felder Report  

=> Interesting stat: "It’s been over a decade since Apple began selling iPhones in India, but the company still only makes up 1% of the world's 2nd-largest smartphone market." - in CNBC

=> "If you’ve taken the time to develop and test a system that provides an edge then not trading it according to the rules is essentially throwing all that work away." - Peter Robbins, independent trader

Warning To The Average Investor

Ray Dalio was recently on CNBC where he alerted retail investors to not make the mistake of thinking that markets that went up recently are better bargains rather than expensive bargains.

“Don’t make the mistake of buying those things that have gone up thinking they’re better rather than more expensive,” Dalio recently told CNBC’s Leslie Picker at the Greenwich Economic Forum in Connecticut.

Read the complete article here: Billionaire Ray Dalio says retail investors should not make this big mistake

India: Modi Is One Of The Best

In my opinion, Indian’s Prime Minister Modi is one of the best, if not the best, leaders in the world. I had an opportunity to explore with him how he thinks as well as what he thinks. If you’re interested in listening to it, here it is.

A Few Principles (Ray Dalio)

Evolve or Die

This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies—for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts.

Tolerating a Problem

Tolerating a problem has the same consequences as failing to identify it.

Remember to reflect when you experience pain

Remember this: The pain is all in your head. If you want to evolve, you need to go where the problems and the pain are. By confronting the pain, you will see more clearly the paradoxes and problems you face. Reflecting on them and resolving them will give you wisdom.

Markets: Serious Problems Brewing

In a recent interview with CNBC, Ray Dalio warned investors of some serious problems that he sees brewing in the markets: Ray Dalio warns of ‘serious problems’ and a bond ‘blow-off’ as a repeat of the late 1930s looms

Ray Dalio: This Environment Is Bullish For Gold

Ray Dalio is bullish on gold. Here are some of the reasons why he believes that gold prices are heading higher.

Ray Dalio: Bullish On Gold

“I think these are unlikely to be good real returning investments and that those that will most likely do best will be those that do well when the value of money is being depreciated and domestic and international conflicts are significant, such as gold.

Additionally, for reasons I will explain in the near future, most investors are underweighted in such assets, meaning that if they just wanted to have a better balanced portfolio to reduce risk, they would have more of this sort of asset. For this reason, I believe that it would be both risk-reducing and return-enhancing to consider adding gold to one’s portfolio. I will soon send out an explanation of why I believe that gold is an effective portfolio diversifier.” 

- in CNBC

Gold Will Be A Top Investment

Ray Dalio says gold will be a top investment during upcoming "paradigm shift" for global markets. 

You can read the complete article here: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/ray-dalio-says-gold-will-be-a-top-investment-during-upcoming-paradigm-shift-for-global-markets.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

Related trading instruments: SPDR Gold Trust (GLD)

Synthesize The Situation At Hand

Every day you are faced with an infinite number of things that come at you. To be effective, you need to be able to tell which dots are important and which dots are not.

Using Evidence-Based Decision-Making Tools

These principles were designed to help you get control over your lower-level/animal you and put your better, higher-level decision-making brain in charge.

When You Have Alignment, Cherish It

While there is nobody in the world who will share your point of view on everything, there are people who will share your most important values and the ways in which you choose to live them out. Make sure you end up with those people.

Meaningful Relationships

The meaningful relationships we get from social cooperation make us happier, healthier, and more productive; social cooperation is also integral to effective work. It is one of the defining characteristics of being human.

How Economies And Markets Work

Being a global macro investor for all these years has required me to gain a practical understanding how economies and markets work. If you’re interested in some of my economic principles, I recommend watching this 30 minute video.

Economics 101 -- "How the Economic Machine Works." 

Created by Ray Dalio this simple but not simplistic and easy to follow 30 minute, animated video answers the question, "How does the economy really work?" Based on Dalio's practical template for understanding the economy, which he developed over the course of his career, the video breaks down economic concepts like credit, deficits and interest rates, allowing viewers to learn the basic driving forces behind the economy, how economic policies work and why economic cycles occur.

Principle Of The Day: The Right People In The Right Roles

Whether it’s in your private life or your work life, it is best for you to work with others in such a way that each person is matched up with other complementary people to create the best mix of attributes for their tasks.

Principles Of The Day: Alignment & Small Groups

When You Have Alignment, Cherish It

While there is nobody in the world who will share your point of view on everything, there are people who will share your most important values and the ways in which you choose to live them out. Make sure you end up with those people.

3 To 5 Is More Than 20

Three to five smart, conceptual people seeking the right answers In an open-minded way will generally lead to the best answers. It may be tempting to convene a larger group, but having too many people collaborate is counterproductive even if the members of the larger group are smart and talented.

Principle Of The Day: Be An Imperfectionist

Perfectionists spend too much time on little differences at the margins at the expense of the important things.

Principle Of The Day: Don't Mistake Possibilities For Probabilities

Anything is possible. It’s the probabilities that matter. Everything must be weighed in terms of its likelihood and prioritized.

Principle Of The Day: Choose Your Habits Well

If you do just about anything frequently enough over time, you will form a habit that will control you. Good habits are those that get you to do what your “upper-level you” wants, and bad habits are those that are controlled by your “lower-level you.”

Principle Of The Day: Meditate

I practice Transcendental Meditation and believe that it has enhanced my open-mindedness, higher-level perspective, equanimity, and creativity. It helps slow things down so that I can act calmly even in the face of chaos, just like a ninja in a street fight.

What It's Like To Work At The Most Successful Hedge Fund In The World

What it's like to work at the most successful hedge fund in the world, where 30 percent of new employees don't make it and those who do are considered 'intellectual Navy SEALs': read the complete article HERE.

Capitalism Is Not Working For The Majority Of People

Ray Dalio speaks about wealth inequality and why capitalism is not working for all Americans: ‘Capitalism basically is not working for the majority of people’ 

“Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent of the population’s net worth is equal to the bottom 90 percent combined. In other words, a big giant wealth gap. That was the same — last time that happened was the late ’30s.”

Principle Of The Day: Radical Open-Mindedness

Learning is the product of a continuous real-time feedback loop in which we make decisions, see their outcomes, and improve our understanding of reality as a result. Being radically open-minded enhances the efficiency of those feedback loops, because it makes what you are doing, and why, so clear to yourself and others that there can’t be any misunderstandings. The more open-minded you are, the less likely you are to deceive your-self—and the more likely it is that others will give you honest feedback. If they are “believable” people (and it’s very important to know who is “believable”), you will learn a lot from them. Being radically transparent and radically open-minded accelerates this learning process. It can also be difficult because being radically transparent rather than more guarded exposes one to criticism. It’s natural to fear that. Yet if you don’t put yourself out there with your radical transparency, you won’t learn.

Principle Of The Day: An Accurate Understanding Of Reality

Most people fight seeing what’s true when it’s not what they want it to be. That’s bad, because it is more important to understand and deal with the bad stuff since the good stuff will take care of itself.

Principle Of The Day: A Successful Life

People who achieve success and drive progress deeply understand the cause-effect relationships that govern reality and have principles for using them to get what they want. The converse is also true: Idealists who are not well grounded in reality create problems, not progress. 

What does a successful life look like? We all have our own deep-seated needs, so we each have to decide for ourselves what success is. I don’t care whether you want to be a master of the universe, a couch potato, or anything else—I really don’t. Some people want to change the world and others want to operate in simple harmony with it and savor life. Neither is better. Each of us needs to decide what we value most and choose the paths we take to achieve it.

Principle Of The Day: Be A Hyperrealist

Understanding, accepting, and working with reality is both practical and beautiful. I have become so much of a hyperrealist that I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty of all realities, even harsh ones, and have come to despise impractical idealism. 

Don’t get me wrong: I believe in making dreams happen. To me, there’s nothing better in life than doing that. The pursuit of dreams is what gives life its flavor. My point is that people who create great things aren’t idle dreamers: They are totally grounded in reality. Being hyperrealistic will help you choose your dreams wisely and then achieve them.

"Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all." 
- Ray Dalio

Principle Of The Day: Embrace Reality

There is nothing more important than understanding how reality works and how to deal with it. The state of mind you bring to this process makes all the difference. I have found it helpful to think of my life as if it were a game in which each problem I face is a puzzle I need to solve. By solving the puzzle, I get a gem in the form of a principle that helps me avoid the same sort of problem in the future. Collecting these gems continually improves my decision making, so I am able to ascend to higher and higher levels of play in which the game gets harder and the stakes become ever greater.

What It Means to Be Principled and Why You Need to Do It

Having clearly written down principles = being crystal clear about what you stand for and how you will behave in various circumstances = having integrity = building trust = knowing your direction = being effective. It’s all about eliminating duality and having consistency of what you say you will do and what you actually do, regardless of who you are with and regardless of whether or not people are looking, and accomplishing what you set out to do. Being radically truthful and radically transparent is invaluable for doing that because it demonstrates that you are doing this and it holds you accountable for doing it. 

While I wrote my principles down, I urge you to have and write down your own principles, feeling free to take anyone’s you like. To help you do that, I’m planning to share one of mine or one of someone else’s every day over the next year or so. I’d like you to ask me questions about them here and then take them or leave them as you see fit. I will also be taking the best posts of people who are participating in this exercise and will share them with people more broadly. It should be fun and productive.

Work Principle Of The Day: See Things From The Higher Level

You are expected to go to the higher level and look down on yourself and others as part of a system. In other words, you must get out of your own head, consider your views as just some among many, and look down on the full array of points of view to assess them in an idea-meritocratic way rather than in your own possessive way. Seeing things from the higher level isn’t just seeing other people’s point of view; it’s also being able to see every situation, yourself & others as though you were looking down on them as an objective observer.

Work Principle Of The Day: Meritocracy vs Anarchy

Principle 6.4B: Never allow the idea meritocracy to slip into anarchy

In an idea meritocracy, there is bound to be more disagreement than in a typical organization, but when it’s taken to an extreme, arguing and nitpicking can undermine the idea meritocracy’s effectiveness.

Principle 2.1: Be loyal to the common mission

Be loyal to the common mission and not to anyone who is not operating consistently with it. Loyalty to specific people who are not in tight sync with the mission and how to achieve it will create factionalism and undermine the well-being of the community.

What It Means to Be Principled and Why You Need to Do It

Having clearly written down principles = being crystal clear about what you stand for and how you will behave in various circumstances = having integrity = building trust = knowing your direction = being effective. It’s all about eliminating duality and having consistency of what you say you will do and what you actually do, regardless of who you are with and regardless of whether or not people are looking, and accomplishing what you set out to do. Being radically truthful and radically transparent is invaluable for doing that because it demonstrates that you are doing this and it holds you accountable for doing it. 

While I wrote my principles down, I urge you to have and write down your own principles, feeling free to take anyone’s you like. To help you do that, I’m planning to share one of mine or one of someone else’s every day over the next year or so. I’d like you to ask me questions about them here and then take them or leave them as you see fit. I will also be taking the best posts of people who are participating in this exercise and will share them with people more broadly. It should be fun and productive.

Principle Of The Day (4.5A & 4.5B)

1 + 1 = 3

Two people who collaborate well will be about three times as effective as each of them operating independently, because each will see what the other might miss—plus they can leverage each other’s strengths while holding each other accountable to higher standards.

3 to 5 is more than 20.

Three to five smart, conceptual people seeking the right answers in an open-minded way will generally lead to the best answers. It may be tempting to convene a larger group, but having too many people collaborate is counterproductive even if the members of the larger group are smart and talented.

Principle Of The Day (4.6)

When you have alignment, cherish it. 

While there is nobody in the world who will share your point of view on everything, there are people who will share your most important values and the ways in which you choose to live them out. Make sure you end up with those people.

Principle Of The Day (4.7)

If you find you can't reconcile major differences - especially in values - consider wether the relationship is worth preserving. 

There are all kinds of different people in the world, many of whom value different kinds of things. If you find you can’t get in sync with some-one on shared values, you should consider whether that person is worth keeping in your life.

Steenbarger: Two Self-Destructive Behaviors

Dr. Brett Steenbarger highlights two self-destructive behaviors that many traders tend to engage in:

(1) Trading addiction
(2) Impulsivity (aka Overtrading)

"Two self-destructive behaviors come to mind immediately the first I would call trading addiction people can be addicted to trading just like they can be addicted to gambling and for much of the same reason not everyone trades to make money some people are trading for thrills and excitement and those people do get in their own way."

"The other self-destructive behavior I would call impulsivity. When people make impulsive decisions because of frustration. They lose some money, the markets are not moving very much and they become frustrated and out of that frustration they feel a need to trade. In fact, traders call it overtrading. They make those impulsive decisions where they don't really have an edge in the trade and they end up 01:38 losing money as a result."

You can find Dr. Steenbarger's books on Amazon.com:

Trading Psychology 2.0: From Best Practices to Best Processes (2015)
The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist (2009) 
The Psychology of Trading: Tools and Techniques for Minding the Markets (2002) 

Charlie Munger: The Merits Of Long-Term Investing

Short Bio: Charlie Munger is a 95 years old investor and the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

Video duration: 23m51s

Charlie Munger on the merits of long-term investing:

"If you invest the way people gamble in casinos you're not gonna do very well. So ,it's the long-term investment that works best. But if you like the action of investing and sometimes winning, sometimes losing, just like people like the action when they gamble in a casino, those people are not my people. I like the long-term investors who figure out something that's going to work over the long term and buy that."

Charlie Munger highlights a paradox in Chinese behavior when it comes to investing in the markets and the desire to gamble:

"The Chinese do have a long attention span and that is a hugely desirable quality because you you're more likely to get the right answer if you think deeply and hard about a subject for a long time and it's odd there's a group of people who are so good at having a long attention span like to gamble so much which is quite counterproductive."

Interestingly, Munger considers the short-term market players as "gamblers":

"We have a view as to what the intrinsic value is of what is being traded and we only buy it when we think it's worth more than we're paying so we're trying to make a long-term investment by waiting for something to be under priced and then buying it and we don't give a damn about all these gamblers in the market."

Jim Simmons: The Mathematician Who Cracked The Markets

Jim Simmons is a mathematician and a hedge fund manager (founded Renaissance Technologies in 1982). He is considered by many to have the best investment track record in the whole industry. 

In this interview Jim explained how he got started in trading in his late thirties when he got tired of mathematics (who can blame him?):

"When I started doing trading, I had gotten a little tired of mathematics. I was in my late 30s I had a little money I started trading and it went very well I made quite a lot of money how it with pure luck I mean I think it was pure luck. simply wasn't mathematical modeling."

And how starting that venture ended up in forming one of the world's biggest hedge funds:

"But in looking at the data after a while I realized hey this looks like there's some structure here and I hired a few mathematicians and we started trying to make some models just the kind of thing we did back at eye-dea you design an algorithm you test it out on a computer does it work doesn't it work and so on. "

Simmons also stated how commodities and currencies used to show trending characteristics back in the day but that is. not the case any longer:

"(in) the old days commodities or currencies had a tendency to trend."

"The trend-following would have been great in the 60s and it was sort of okay in the 70s by the 80s it wasn't such." 

Jim stressed the importance of staying ahead of the competition by looking for shorter term approaches to trading and hiring very smart individuals:

"We stayed ahead of the pack by finding by finding other other approaches and shorter term approaches to some extent. But the the real thing was to gather a tremendous amount of data and and we had to get it by hand in the early days. We went down to the Federal Reserve and copied interest rate histories and stuff like that because it didn't exist on computers. We got a lot of data, very smart people and that was the that was the key."

"In a certain sense what we did was machine learning you you you look at a lot of data and you try to simulate different predictive schemes until you get better and better at it it doesn't doesn't necessarily feed back on itself the way we did things but it worked."

Mark D. Cook: Having A Business Plan For Trading

Mark D. Cook was one of the few day traders interviewed by Jack Schwager on his Market Wizards books (Stock Market Wizards, Mark D. Cook: Harvesting S&P Profits). In this presentation Mark stresses out the importance of treating trading as a business.

"In my own experience as I started with the business training plan in 1991 and I have been doing it every year since. It added to my bottom line because I had scenarios covered of what to do, when to do it and how to go about it before as I said before the emotions came on to it."

A few of the best quotes from his interview on the Stock market Wizards book are:

"The best trades work the quickest."

"If you decide to trade for a living, you have to treat it just like any other business endeavor and go into it with a plan."

"You need to have a solid business plan. The trouble is that most people start trading without any definitive plan."

Jack Schwager: Have The Markets Changed Over The Years?

Jack Schwager has written four excellent book on his Market Wizards series (Market Wizards, The New Market Wizards, Stock Market Wizards and Hedge Fund Market Wizards). When asked on how these new traders differ from the ones interviewed in the first book he answered:

"Every person is a different personality, different story, different lessons and different way of trading. Even within this book (Hedge Fund Market Wizards) everybody I interviewed is completely different on how they make money in the markets. (That's) amazing, I mean, I couldn't even make up as many various ways of trading markets as these people are using."

On the price action itself, Jack stresses that markets have changed a lot over the years but the main trading principles do not really change over time:

"Markets are always changing and but certain principles but the main principles don't change." 

While trend following worked very well in the eighties and nineties, in the modern markets they do not work well. One of the reasons for that is the proliferation of computerized trading systems and models:

"I think one big change is the the big trend following profits that were easy to take in those earlier years no longer are then you can still get big trends but markets sent a much more false breakouts you tend to have lots of choppier conditions it's more difficult to make money doing that type of approach you can still do it but has to be a bit more sophisticated."

The Story Of Jesse Livermore

Jesse Livermore is considered by many has the best speculator that has ever lived. His book, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator was the most recommended book among the market wizards interviewed by Jack Schwager in his books. 

Inside Reminiscences of a Stock Operator you will find some of the most brilliant quotes about the stock market, trading and investing. Here's a few:

"Blunders by incompetent speculators cover a wide scale. I have warned against averaging losses. That is a most common practice." 

“I have long since learned, as all should learn, not to make excuses when wrong. Just admit it and try to profit by it. We all know when we are wrong. The market will tell the speculator when he is wrong, because he is losing money.” 

“Let me warn you that the fruits of your success will be in direct ratio to the honesty and sincerity of your own effort in keeping your own records, doing your own thinking, and reaching your own conclusions.” 

“The real money made in speculating has been in commitments showing in profit right from the start.” 

"Rome was not built in a day," and no real movement of importance ends in one day or in one week. It takes time for it to run its logical course. 

"Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling. But after the initial transaction, don’t make a second unless the first shows you a profit." 

"A speculator should make it a rule each time he closes out a successful deal to take one-half of his profits and lock this sum up in a safe deposit box." 

"Definitely is not safe to try to keep account of too many stocks at one time. You will become entangled and confused." 

“A speculator without cash is like a store owner with no inventory. Cash is your inventory, your lifeline, your best friend. Without cash you’re out of business.” 

“The market will tell the speculator when he is wrong, because he is losing money.”

Peter Brandt: Mental Game Of Trading

Peter Brandt is a professional trader and he has been trading futures and forex for 42 years.

Video duration: 7m11s

Peter Brandt starts with a few pertinent questions to describe what trading is really all about.

"Have you ever had five straight losing trades, ten straight losing trades?"

"Have you ever been in a situation where you wonder whether you're ever gonna win again?"

Peter Brandt considers that there are two dangerous periods in the life of the trader:

"The two most dangerous periods that can enter into the life of the trader and how they affect you in slightly different ways but important ways and the two things are severe draw downs and the second thing is a severely profitable period of time because they also can be very dangerous."

In this video Peter shares his worst drawdown experience:

"My year worst year as a trader was 2013 in which I lost 13 percent but that was part of a drawdown that lasted 15 months. For 15 months I was in the drawdown and it was agony."

Peter Brandt has written a great book. You can find it on Amazon:

Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader: Lessons from 21 Weeks of Real Trading (2011)

Ray Dalio: Building A Company Where The Best Ideas Win

Short Bio: Ray Dalio is an hedge fund manager, writer and philanthropist. Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates, currently one of the world's biggest hedge funds. His estimated net worth is around 18 billion dollars.

Video duration: 16m33s

In this video presentation at Ted Talks, Ray Dalio explained how he got started in trading the markets and how investors must act in order to become successful. Here are some of the highlights:

"When I was 12 years old I hated school but I fell in love with trading the markets."

"In order to be an effective investor one has to bet against the consensus and be right and it's not easy to bet against the census and be right when has the bet against the consensus and be right because the consensus is built into the price." 

"I made a lot of painful mistakes and with time my attitude about those mistakes began to change I began to think of them as puzzles that if I could solve the puzzles they would give me gems and the puzzles were what would I do differently in the future so I wouldn't make that painful mistake and the gems were principles that I would then write down so I would remember them that would help me in the future."

You can find Ray Dalio's books on Amazon:

Principles: Life and Work (2017)
Big Debt Crises (2018)

Brett Steenbarger: The Importance Of Deliberate Practice In Trading

Video duration: 3m19s

Record date: August, 2018

Dr. Brett Steenbarger considers trading as a performance activity similar to sports or chess:

"What traders need to focus on is that trading is a performance activity no different from sports no different from chess acting and so in any performance activity it requires practice it requires feedback about how we're doing efforts at getting better and better and so we see successful traders going through a certain kind of learning curve where they're constantly learning from their experience changing what they do improving what they do redoing relearning always evolving."

 Brett also stresses the importance for traders to work in teams:

"One of the techniques that's worked very well with the developing traders I've worked with is to learn in teams (...) Traders will team up and learn together. They will keep a journal of their results, have a daily report card that they keep about what they've done well, what they need to improve and they share that with each other so that each trader is learning from everybody else which doubles or triples the learning."

You can find Dr. Steenbarger's books on Amazon.com:

Trading Psychology 2.0: From Best Practices to Best Processes (2015)
The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist (2009) 
The Psychology of Trading: Tools and Techniques for Minding the Markets (2002) 

Jack Schwager: Losing Is Part Of The Game

Video duration: 2m48s

Highlights:

"One of the keys who to being a successful trader is to understand that losing is part of the game."

"It's all about finding what works for you and it's not the same as for somebody else." 

"The most important thing is risk management they all will tell you that more important in methodology."

"Marty Schwartz spent like 10 years he says losing money and then he became a winner I asked what what changed he said I became a winner when I understood it was okay to lose."

The role of "Luck" in trading:

When asked if luck has anything to do with trading success, Jack Schwager answered that over the long run luck has nothing to do with successful trading in the markets:

"In the short run you're better off being lucky than smart, that's the old cliche. It's true. But for the long run only the traders that really know what they're doing will survive. So, in fact what luck is one of the things that fools people because in trading even the amateur  can be right because you can only buy or sell so some people think they're smart just because they get into the bull market and they're on the right side. But over the long term,luck has nothing to do with it, just for the short term."

Here are some of Schwager's books available for sale on Amazon: 

Market Wizards, Updated: Interviews with Top Traders (2012) 

The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders (1994)

A Complete Guide to the Futures Market: Technical Analysis, Trading Systems, Fundamental Analysis, Options, Spreads, and Trading Principles (2017)

Linda Raschke: Pre-Market Routines

Linda Raschke shares her trading routines.

The importance of doing the homework the night before:

"First of all I always try to have my homework done the night before(...) and then of course first thing I'll do when I get up is usually check the markets just to see where they're trading so I can get a baseline reading (...)"

Most trading opportunities are in the morning:

"The opportunity comes in the morning sessions and you know I usually start at 6 a.m. CT so at 7 a.m. CT there is a big pickup in activity in the market so if I'm watching it a little bit beforehand it helps get a feel (...)"

The importance of avoiding or minimizing distractions:

"Trading is a performance oriented discipline so the more you can eliminate distractions and get yourself into a ritual or groove right away I think you're better able to concentrate and that's really the key is being able to concentrate right off the bat."

The little details that matter:

"For me, it's always important that I eat a big breakfast. I always have a giant bowl of oatmeal or a couple eggs and you know that really only takes 5 minutes but you got to feel the body and got to feel the brain. That's so important! People sit there and think they're going to make it on a bagel or something... It just doesn't work that way so it's really important to have some good nutrition." 

The importance of trading from a quiet, calm space:

"Try and have a space where you're not going to be distracted or kids knocking on the door, phone's ringing or that type of stuff." 

Steenbarger: 3 Common Trading Problems

Dr. Brett Steenbarger identifies three important common trading problems:

(1) performance anxiety
(2) impulsivity: impulsivity occurs when we act before we think
(3) failure to adapt to changing market conditions

Video duration: 9 minutes

Record date: July, 2009

You can find Dr. Steenbarger's books on Amazon.com:

Trading Psychology 2.0: From Best Practices to Best Processes (2015)
The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist (2009) 
The Psychology of Trading: Tools and Techniques for Minding the Markets (2002) 

John F. Carter: 5 Favorite Option Trades

Bio: John F. Carter is the founder and the CEO of Simpler Trading and the author of the best-selling book Mastering The Trade.

Video duration: 48 minutes

Record date: October, 2018

Summary:

John F. Carter describes his 5 favorite basic strategies:

1. Directional swings lasting a few weeks
2. Directional swings lasting a few days
3. Directional day trades lasting a few hours
4. Selling credit spreads on weekly options
5. Implied volatility crush on bad news

John's book is available on Amazon:

Mastering the Trade, Third Edition: Proven Techniques for Profiting from Intraday and Swing Trading Setups 3rd Edition

Jack Schwager: Polar Extreme Approaches To Trading

Video Duration: 6 minutes

Record date: May, 2015

Video Highlights: 

On one hand you have Jim Rogers who's the world's biggest cynic about technical trading. He's very long-term, fundamental ideas and done successfully all his life. His comment about technical analysis is, "I never met a rich technician unless you count the ones that sell their services". That's a summary of his opinion about technical analysis and he's been extremely successful. 

But you got people like Marty Schwartz who started out as a stocks trader and told me he lost money every year trading about fundamentals and then found technical analysis and got wealthy as a technician. 

So you can take people who have not only different approaches but have approaches that are polar extremes and consider each other's approaches complete nonsense and yet they're both extremely successful.

Here are some of Schwager's books available for sale on Amazon: 

Market Wizards, Updated: Interviews with Top Traders (2012) 
The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders (1994)
A Complete Guide to the Futures Market: Technical Analysis, Trading Systems, Fundamental Analysis, Options, Spreads, and Trading Principles (2017)

Van Tharp: Position Sizing Strategies

Dr. Van Tharp on the importance of position sizing:

"It's a little-known topic but it's probably aside from your own psychology the most important topic you could ever learn. How much? Position Sizing strategies tell you how much you should have on throughout the course of a trade and what people don't realize that it's through position sizing, not your system but through position sizing that you meet your (trading) objectives."

Mark Minervini: I'm a Big Reader

I came from a modest beginning to say the least so I had to read a lot of books and get a lot of books and tapes early on in the day to get me motivated and to learn how to get a successful mindset.

So, I have I often point out that I have all my books behind me in my office. Over a thousand books on motivation, success and finance and so I'm a big reader. I wanted also in my book to be able to motivate people because if you're not motivated, you don't believe you can do something.