Think & Trade Like a Champion: The Secrets, Rules & Blunt Truths of a Stock Market Wizard Hardcover – January 1, 2017

I came to trading and investing late in my adult life. This was an area that I never really understood or had much comfort in. I started investing with so called financial advisors and was getting mediocre returns and excuses at every turn when I questioned their performance.Due to my ignorance of markets and my trust in so called “experts” I felt I was being taken advantage of. No matter how poorly my portfolio did, the advisor / broker always made their money.At that point I decided not to trust my financial future to anybody else and take it into my own hands. If I did not do well, I was the only one to blame.I read a number of books and websites/blogs on trading that either didn’t make sense to me or were outright scamsAfter reading William O’Neil’s book How to make money in stocks. I finally found material to resonated with me, made sense, and didn’t sugar coat the risk involved in the market and the work it really takes to extract money from the market. O’Neil’s work led me to Mark Minervini’s, an O’Neil disciple.I bought Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard and Think & Trade Like a Champion and devoured them both in four days. I could not put the books down. The books were like drinking from a fire hose. There was so much information presented in a simple, clear, and concise manner. I use the word simple as the ultimate compliment of sophistication. The most sophisticated ideas appear simple, that is ultimate measure of sophistication.My head was spinning with all the ideas from Mark’s book that I decided to instead of reading 20 more books on trading. I would read Mark’s books 20 time over and over again.Each time I read them I the ideas started to gel and make sense to me.I went from super beginner, not even knowing how to place a trade. To being able to hold my own in conversations with experienced traders, with years and success under their belt.Mark’s focus on risk management, how to back into a trade risk first, risk reward ratios / getting odds were a game changer for me.When I first started trading it was in very volatile time in the market. The risk management rules, low risk entries into stocks and placing the correct stop loss allowed me to weather a difficult time in the market while learning, gaining experience, and coming out on the other side with all my capital intact and a small gain. This was while many experience traders that I knew where getting chopped up in a whipsaw market and had big losses.I will say that honestly it took me about 18 months of reading and re-reading and studying Mark’s books to really get a handle on his system and to understand what really moves markets, supply and demand and timing low risk entry points into the market.Understanding the Mark’s system is not something that works in all market conditions and that you don’t have to trade every day to make significant returns was an eye opener for me. The system has taught me when to go to cash, when to put a toe in the market and when to get aggressive.This book has been a game changer for me. It has changed my entire outlook on my life and has given me control of my financial future.I have gifted it over 10 times to close family and friends.And I continue to recommend it as probably the only trading book you will ever need.

So I've read the book over 7 times. Guess what, the more experience I get with the market, the more I understand what Minervini is trying to teach. Read all his books, in time you will find they are amazing. And yes I have been trading successfully after reading his books. I program the trend templates filters in python, but I do use IBD Digital to get the required RS values. So far mainly sticking to higher RS values (94/95 +). To be honest, I've had the most success with 98+ RS values with amazing earnings already on the table. I can come up with similar RS values by calculating and sorting the RS Line for all stocks (then I get the first 5 - 10% of the results), but for the low price of IBD Digital, I'd rather just get the real thing.Thank you Master Mark Minervini (Market Wizard).You can find hints on calculating the RS value online (even tips from the legend David Ryan himself). It's not exact, but its close enough if you can't afford IBD in the beginning.

Mark has written a gem. Really a masterpiece that details how to trade using his system to achieve superior returns. When taken together with Minervini Private Access, and the Master Trader Program, you will enjoy a comprehensive education in how to enjoy very lucrative trading. Thanks Mark!

Very well written and insightful.

Definitely focuses your skills at trading and make you think before hitting the buy or sell button. I like the analogy of keep your trades in the strike zone. Warren Buffett said something similar. My trades are much better now and I have more control. This book helped me trade like a champion.

“Think & Trade Like a Champion.” The title says more than might appear, at first glance. Perhaps modeled on one of Mr. Minervini’s confessed early influences, a book called “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, the first part of the title is actually just as, if not more important than the second.Minervini is very generous and open with his own experiences. There is no self-promoting B.S. here. He shares his own personal growth journey as a trader, including a period of self-examination after suffering losses early in his career. To improve, Minervini realized he needed to not just do what successful traders do, but that he first had to learn to think like they did.Like many learning to trade, I turned to this book for technical instruction: buy points, patterns, position sizing, holding periods, and the like. There is plenty of that here. My copy of this book is now heavily tabbed throughout for ongoing reference.More importantly though, I’ve now come to fully appreciate the importance of “mindset,” not just to trading but to life. There is a section at the end of this book which Minervini acknowledges he was not sure whether to include: his interview with his own personal performance coach Jairek Robbins. This is pure gold. To emulate the level of success of traders like Minervini, I’m now “reprogramming my pleasure/pain cycle” as Robbins recommended for Minervini, following rules, cutting losses, and most importantly, celebrating when I successfully follow my process, regardless of the short-term outcome of any specific trade. I’m now carefully journaling my trades, as Minervini recommends, and does himself. I’m keeping track of my results, and they are improving! While not yet at Minervini’s level, I can say with 100% certainty that I’m on my way, and in fact have already arrived at a more confident, successful place, not just in trading but in life. I’m “thinking” like Mr. Minervini.Do yourself a favor and read this book, and all of Minervini’s books, as I have. Like I did, you might come for the technical education, but leave with so much more.