For me trading is defined in three simple phrases:

Having a belief that trading can be profitable if done rightly.

Knowing your trades and your market.

Knowing yourself as a trader.

Without the belief you will reach nowhere.

When the climbers set out to conquer Mount Everest they know about the insurmountable odds against them. They know the perils of failure and the rewards of success. The belief that they can and will succeed comes from:

Their own training and the examples of success of those who achieved the feat before them.

For traders in the stock market, such belief will come from reading and knowing about the success stories of other traders. They might have traded in different times, traded different instruments with methods vastly different from today’s practices, but the important point is that they made money out of their trading. And did it consistently.

Their stories will add strength to our belief and make us better traders.

We can learn from their actions when in loss and when in a big profit. We can learn from them about how to take profit and loss with the same detachment. We can learn from them about respecting the markets and not fight the trend.

In this exercise the following books will be of tremendous help.

These books by Jack D. Schwager are mainly interviews of very successful traders and their experiences about profitable trading. One learns from the successful traders and not the usual doomsayers who go around telling everyone that trading was a mug’s game and nobody ever made money in this.

Another very good  book which I came across is by Nicolas Darvas.

A fantastic story about trading without financial information and all the noise of  media and still making big profits.

There are many good books but these are my top choices for the belief that trading if done rightly can be and should be profitable.

After the belief it is time for knowing your trades and yourself.

There are a huge number of books for self help and motivation as well as the stock markets.

As this site is mainly about Options Trading and that too for Indian Markets, my suggested readings will be with that theme.

The above book by well known face on Business Channels — Ashwani Gujral is a simple book explaining Derivatives Trading as in Indian Markets.

For knowing yourself one need not go and sit under the Bodhi Tree to get enlightenment. Few self help books, not necessarily from the financial sector can be useful.

My two favorites:

and

I found these books useful. It is not necessary that they be read in a particular order. All of these can be suitable references at some point of time.

The above list is not exhaustive. There are many interesting books about the crash in 1929 and 2008. That will need another post at another time.

I hope you find the suggested books interesting and useful.

Important Note: The images of the suggested books are links to Amazon.in website. This site is an Amazon Affiliate and earns some commissions on the purchases made on Amazon through these links.