Trading in the Zone

by Mark Douglas

  NEW YORK INSTITUTE OF FINANCE

  An Imprint of Prentice Hall Press

  A member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  375 Hudson Street,

  New York, N.Y. 10014

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  Prentice Hall® is a trademark of Pearson Education, Inc.

  Copyright @ 2000 by Mark Douglas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Douglas, Mark (Mark J.)

  Trading in the zone : master the market with confidence, discipline, and a winning

  attitude / by Mark Douglas.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-735-20144-6

  1. Stocks. 2. Speculation. I. Title.

  HG6041.D59 2001

  332.64—dc

  ... From the Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.

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  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to all of the traders I have had the pleasure of working with over the last 18 years as a trading coach. Each of you in your own unique way is a part of the insight and guidance this book will provide to those who choose to trade from a confident, disciplined, and consistent state of mind.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  CHAPTER 1 - THE ROAD TO SUCCESS: FUNDAMENTAL, TECHNICAL, OR MENTAL ANALYSIS?

  CHAPTER 2 - THE LURE (AND THE DANGERS) OF TRADING

  CHAPTER 3 - TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

  CHAPTER 4 - CONSISTENCY: A STATE OF MIND

  CHAPTER 5 - THE DYNAMICS OF PERCEPTION

  CHAPTER 6 - THE MARKET’S PERSPECTIVE

  CHAPTER 7 - THE TRADER’S EDGE: THINKING IN PROBABILITIES

  CHAPTER 8 - WORKING WITH YOUR BELIEFS

  CHAPTER 9 - THE NATURE OF BELIEFS

  CHAPTER 10 - THE IMPACT OF BELIEFS ON TRADING

  CHAPTER 11 - THINKING LIKE A TRADER

  ATTITUDE SURVEY

  Index

  FOREWORD

  The great bull market in stocks has led to an equally great bull market in the number of books published on the subject of how to make money trading the markets. Many ideas abound, some good, some not, some original, some just a repackaging of earlier works. Occasionally, though, a writer comes forward with something that really sets him or her apart from the pack, something special. One such writer is Mark Douglas.

  Mark Douglas, in Trading in the Zone, has written a book that is the accumulation of years of thought and research—the work of a lifetime—and for those of us who view trading as a profession, he has produced a gem.

  Trading in the Zone is an in-depth look at the challenges that we face when we take up the challenge of trading. To the novice, the only challenge appears to be to find a way to make money. Once the novice learns that tips, brokers’ advice, and other ways to justify buying or selling do not work consistently, he discovers that he either needs to develop a reliable trading strategy or purchase one. After that, trading should be easy, right? All you have to do is follow the rules, and the money will fall into your lap.

  At this point, if not before, novices discover that trading can turn into one of the most frustrating experiences they will ever face. This experience leads to the oft-started statistic that 95 percent of futures traders lose all of their money within the first year of trading. Stock traders generally experience the same results, which is why pundits always point to the fact that most stock traders fail to out-perform a simple buy and hold investment scenario.

  So, why do people, the majority of whom are extremely successful in other occupations, fail so miserably as traders? Are successful traders born and not made? Mark Douglas says no. What’s necessary, he says, is that the individual acquire the trader’s mindset. It sounds easy, but the fact is, this mindset is very foreign when compared with the way our life experiences teach us to think about the world.

  That 95-percent failure rate makes sense when you consider how most of us experience life, using skills learned as we grow. When it comes to trading, however, it turns out that the skills we learn to earn high marks in school, advance our careers, and create relationships with other people, the skills we are taught that should carry us through life, turn out to be inappropriate for trading. Traders, we find out, must learn to think in terms of probabilities and to surrender all of the skills we have acquired to achieve in virtually every other aspect of our lives. In Trading in the Zone, Mark Douglas teaches us how. He has put together a very valuable book. His sources are his own personal experiences as a trader, a trader’s coach in Chicago, author, and lecturer in his field of trading psychology.

  My recommendation? Enjoy Douglas’s Trading in the Zone and, in doing so, develop a trader’s mindset.

  THOM HARTLE

  PREFACE

  The goal of any trader is to turn profits on a regular basis, yet so few people ever really make consistent money as traders. What accounts for the small percentage of traders who are consistently successful? To me, the determining factor is psychological—the consistent winners think differently from everyone else.

  I started trading in 1978. At the time, I was managing a commercial casualty insurance agency in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. I had a very successful career and thought I could easily transfer that success into trading. Unfortunately, I found that was not the case. By 1981, I was thoroughly disgusted with my inability to trade effectively while holding another job, so I moved to Chicago and got a job as a broker with Merrill Lynch at the Chicago Board of Trade. How did I do? Well, within nine months of moving to Chicago, I had lost nearly everything I owned. My losses were the result of both my trading activities and my exorbitant life style, which demanded that I make a lot of money as a trader.

  From these early experiences as a trader, I learned an enormous amount about myself, and about the role of psychology in trading. As a result, in 1982, I started working on my first book, The Disciplined Trader: Developing Winning Attitudes. When I began this project I had no concept of how difficult it was to write a book or explain something that I understood for myself in a manner and form that would be useful to other people. I thought it was going to take me between six and nine months to get the job done. It took seven and a half years and was finally published by Prentice Hall in 1990.

  In 1983, I left Merrill Lynch to start a consulting firm, Trading Behavior Dynamics, where I presently develop and conduct seminars on trading psychology and act in the capacity of what is commonly referred to as a trading coach. I’ve done countless presentations for trading companies, clearing firms, brokerage houses, banks, and investment conferences all over the world. I’ve worked at a personal level, one on one, with virtually every type of trader in the business, including some of the biggest floor traders, hedgers, option specialists, and CTAs, as well as neophytes

  As of this writing, I have spent the last seventeen years dissecting the psychological
dynamics behind trading so that I could develop effective methods for teaching the proper principles of success. What I’ve discovered is that, at the most fundamental level, there is a problem with the way we think. There is something inherent in the way our minds work that doesn’t fit very well with the characteristics shown by the markets.

  Those traders who have confidence in their own trades, who trust themselves to do what needs to be done without hesitation, are the ones who become successful. They no longer fear the erratic behavior of the market. They learn to focus on the information that helps them spot opportunities to make a profit, rather than focusing on the information that reinforces their fears.

  While this may sound complicated, it all boils down to learning to believe that: (1) you don’t need to know what’s going to happen next to make money; (2) anything can happen; and (3) every moment is unique, meaning every edge and outcome is truly a unique experience. The trade either works or it doesn’t. In any case, you wait for the next edge to appear and go through the process again and again. With this approach you will learn in a methodical, non-random fashion what works and what doesn’t. And, just as important, you will build a sense of self-trust so that you won’t damage yourself in an environment that has the unlimited qualities the markets have.

  Most traders don’t believe that their trading problems are the result of the way they think about trading or, more specifically, how they are thinking while they are trading. In my first book, The Disciplined Trader, I identified the problems confronting the trader from a mental perspective and then built a philosophical framework for understanding the nature of these problems and why they exist. I had five major objectives in mind in writing Trading in the Zone: • To prove to the trader that more or better market analysis is not the solution to his trading difficulties or lack of consistent results.

  • To convince the trader that it’s his attitude and “state of mind” that determine his results.

  • To provide the trader with the specific beliefs and attitudes that are necessary to build a winner’s mindset, which means learning how to think in probabilities.

  • To address the many conflicts, contradictions, and paradoxes in thinking that cause the typical trader to assume that he already does think in probabilities, when he really doesn’t.

  • To take the trader through a process that integrates this thinking strategy into his mental system at a functional level.

  (Note: Until recently, most traders were men, but I recognize that more and more women are joining the ranks. In an effort to avoid confusion and awkward phrasing, I have consistently used the pronoun “he” throughout this book in describing traders. This certainly does not reflect any bias on my part.)

  Trading in the Zone presents a serious psychological approach to becoming a consistent winner in your trading. I do not offer a trading system; I am more interested in showing you how to think in the way necessary to become a profitable trader. I assume that you already have your own system, your own edge. You must learn to trust your edge. The edge means there is a higher probability of one outcome than another. The greater your confidence, the easier it will be to execute your trades. This book is designed to give you the insight and understanding you need about yourself and the nature of trading, so that actually doing it becomes as easy, simple, and stress-free as when you’re just watching the market and thinking about doing it.

  In order to determine how well you “think like a trader,” take the following Attitude Survey. There are no right or wrong answers. Your answers are an indication of how consistent your current mental framework is with the way you need to think in order to get the most out of your trading.

  MARK DOUGLAS

  ATTITUDE SURVEY

  Set aside your answers as you read through this book. After you’ve finished the last chapter (“Thinking Like a Trader”), take the Attitude Survey again—it’s reprinted at the back of the book. You may be surprised to see how much your answers differ from the first time.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE ROAD TO SUCCESS: FUNDAMENTAL, TECHNICAL, OR MENTAL ANALYSIS?

  IN THE BEGINNING: FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS

  Who remembers when fundamental analysis was considered the only real or proper way to make trading decisions? When I started trading in 1978, technical analysis was used by only a handful of traders, who were considered by the rest of the market community to be, at the very least, crazy. As difficult as it is to believe now, it wasn’t very long ago when Wall Street and most of the major funds and financial institutions thought that technical analysis was some form of mystical hocus-pocus.

  Now, of course, just the opposite is true. Almost all experienced traders use some form of technical analysis to help them formulate their trading strategies. Except for some small, isolated pockets in the academic community, the “purely” fundamental analyst is virtually extinct. What caused this dramatic shift in perspective?

  I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that the answer to this question is very simple: Money! The problem with making trading decisions from a strictly fundamental perspective is the inherent difficulty of making money consistently using this approach.

  For those of you who may not be familiar with fundamental analysis, let me explain. Fundamental analysis attempts to take into consideration all the variables that could affect the relative balance or imbalance between the supply of and the possible demand for any particular stock, commodity, or financial instrument. Using primarily mathematical models that weigh the significance of a variety of factors (interest rates, balance sheets, weather patterns, and numerous others), the analyst projects what the price should be at some point in the future.

  The problem with these models is that they rarely, if ever, factor in other traders as variables. People, expressing their beliefs and expectations about the future, make prices move—not models. The fact that a model makes a logical and reasonable projection based on all the relevant variables is not of much value if the traders who are responsible for most of the trading volume are not aware of the model or don’t believe in it.

  As a matter of fact, many traders, especially those on the floors of the futures exchanges who have the ability to move prices very dramatically in one direction or the other, usually don’t have the slightest concept of the fundamental supply and demand factors that are supposed to affect prices. Furthermore, at any given moment, much of their trading activity is prompted by a response to emotional factors that are completely outside the parameters of the fundamental model. In other words, the people who trade (and consequently move prices) don’t always act in a rational manner.

  Ultimately, the fundamental analyst could find that a prediction about where prices should be at some point in the future is correct. But in the meantime, price movement could be so volatile that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to stay in a trade in order to realize the objective.

  THE SHIFT TO TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

  Technical analysis has been around for as long as there have been organized markets in the form of exchanges. But the trading community didn’t accept technical analysis as a viable tool for making money until the late 1970s or early 1980s. Here’s what the technical analyst knew that it took the mainstream market community generations to catch on to.

  A finite number of traders participate in the markets on any given day, week, or month. Many of these traders do the same kinds of things over and over in their attempt to make money. In other words, individuals develop behavior patterns, and a group of individuals, interacting with one another on a consistent basis, form collective behavior patterns. These behavior patterns are observable and quantifiable, and they repeat themselves with statistical reliability.

  Technical analysis is a method that organizes this collective behavior into identifiable patterns that can give a clear indication of when there is a greater probability of one thing happening over another. In a sense, technical analysis allows you to get into the mind of the market to anticipate wha
t’s likely to happen next, based on the kind of patterns the market generated at some previous moment.

  As a method for projecting future price movement, technical analysis has turned out to be far superior to a purely fundamental approach. It keeps the trader focused on what the market is doing now in relation to what it has done in the past, instead of focusing on what the market should be doing based solely on what is logical and reasonable as determined by a mathematical model. On the other hand, fundamental analysis creates what I call a “reality gap” between “what should be” and “what is.” The reality gap makes it extremely difficult to make anything but very long-term predictions that can be difficult to exploit, even if they are correct.

  In contrast, technical analysis not only closes this reality gap, but also makes available to the trader a virtually unlimited number of possibilities to take advantage of. The technical approach opens up many more possibilities because it identifies how the same repeatable behavior patterns occur in every time frame—moment-to-moment, daily, weekly, yearly, and every time span in between. In other words, technical analysis turns the market into an endless stream of opportunities to enrich oneself.

  THE SHIFT TO MENTAL ANALYSIS

  If technical analysis works so well, why would more and more of the trading community shift their focus from technical analysis of the market to mental analysis of themselves, meaning their own individual trading psychology? To answer this question, you probably don’t have to do anything more than ask yourself why you bought this book. The most likely reason is that you’re dissatisfied with the difference between what you perceive as the unlimited potential to make money and what you end up with on the bottom line.