{
  "Study": "The great bull market in stocks has led to an equally great bull market in the number of books \npublished on the subject of how to make money trading the markets. Many ideas abound, some good, \nsome not, some original, some just a repackaging of earlier works. Occasionally, though, a writer \ncomes forward with something that really sets him or her apart from the pack, something special. One \nsuch writer is Mark Douglas. Mark Douglas, in Trading in the Zone, has written a book that is the \naccumulation of years of thought and research—the work of a lifetime—and for those of us who view \ntrading as a profession, he has produced a gem. \nTrading in the Zone is an in-depth look at the challenges that we face when we take up the challenge of \ntrading. To the novice, the only challenge appears to be to find a way to make money. Once the novice \nlearns that tips, brokers' advice, and other ways to justify buying or selling do not work consistently, he \ndiscovers that he either needs to develop a reliable trading strategy or purchase one. After that, trading \nshould be easy, right? All you have to do is follow the rules, and the money will fall into your lap. \nAt this point, if not before, novices discover that trading can turn into one of the most frustrating \nexperiences they will ever face. \nThis experience leads to the oft-started statistic that 95 percent of futures traders lose all of their money \nwithin the first year of trading. Stock traders generally experience the same results, which is why \npundits always point to the fact that most stock traders fail to outperform a simple buy and hold \ninvestment scenario. \nSo, why do people, the majority of whom are extremely successful in other occupations, fail so \nmiserably as traders? Are successful traders born and not made? Mark Douglas says no. What's \nnecessary, he says, is that the individual acquire the trader's mindset. It sounds easy, but the fact is, this \nmindset is very foreign when compared with the way our life experiences teach us to think about the \nworld. \nThat 95-percent failure rate makes sense when you consider how most of us experience life, using \nskills learned as we grow. When it comes to trading, however, it turns out that the skills we learn to \nearn high marks in school, advance our careers, and create relationships with other people, the skills we \nare taught that should carry us through life, turn out to be inappropriate for trading. Traders, we find \nout, must learn to think in terms of probabilities and to surrender all of the skills we have acquired to \nachieve in virtually every other aspect of our lives. In Trading in the Zone, Mark Douglas teaches us \nhow. He has put together a very valuable book. His sources are his own personal experiences as a \ntrader, a traders coach in Chicago, author, and lecturer in his field of trading psychology. \nMy recommendation? Enjoy Douglas's Trading in the Zone and, in doing so, develop a trader's "
}