Forex Talking in English

"Zone" was recommended to a friend of mine by a professional floor trader who told him, "I wish I had read it before starting two years ago. Don't place another trade until you do

Well said. Does this apply to investors as well as traders? Oh, absolutely! If you have ever said to yourself, "I'm not selling that stock while it's down, I'll wait until I have a profit in it," then for the love of money, read this book.

Finally, read "Zone" before Douglas' earlier work. If you still want more then read "Disciplined Trader" for a general review plus a deeper exploration into the author's philosophical and meta-physical theories

If you want to fulfill your expectations of a perfect trading system this is not your book. This book is about you and the market; is about how to set up your mind to become a consistent winner.

Chapter 1 describes the necessary mental framework for trading properly.
Chapter 2 shows the psychological challenges a trader must face up to.
Chapters 3 to 5 define the mental framework for trading and what will happen if you lack it.

Chapters 6 and 7 tell us how to get that mental framework from a personal point of view ( opportunity flow and thinking in probabilities).
Chapters 8 to 10 describe how to achieve that mental framework from the market's point of view.
Chapter 11 is an exercise to put it all together.

Although Mr. Douglas knows what he's talking about, his book requires more market examples. Furthermore he loses the thread of his arguments at times and request to be reviewed several times to make the most of it.
In spite of this shortcomings it is correct a approach and worth reading.

Because the core of the book - the emphasis on 'thinking probabilistically', and on banishing both fear and euphoria: on the system rather than on individual trades - is excellent and worth the cover price alone.

However there is a wearying amount of padding - most of it in the 'obviousness' category. The author spends pages at a time, for example, telling us that:

1. We have beliefs

2. Those beliefs cause us to act certain ways

3. We can change those beliefs

4. Therefore causing us to act in different ways.

(etc etc etc)

We knew all this.

Chief problem is that Douglas isn't a writer: doesn't know how to pare and refine material; reduce to essence; delete the unnecessary. Likes the sound of his own voice.

This also shows in the frequent spelling and grammatical mistakes, and the poor punctuation - which tends to throw one's attention all over the page, trying to discern a meaning. I'd have hoped the publisher - Prentice Hall - could have afforded an editor

Douglas also affects, at times, knowledge of things he knows nothing about. E.g. equating negative ions with negative emotions - i.e. an electrical charge with a metaphor (!) Even a bit of school science would have prevented this one.

Hard to know whether to recommend this book or not, as reading it will waste much of your time: as you proceed from gem to gem (and there are many) via a wilderness of excess, often meaningless, verbiage.

Advice to wealthy readers: Pay someone to rip out the time-wasting pages, and chapters, and salvage for you the worthwhile bits - most of them in the first half.