Zachari SaltmerSeykota ran one of the best long-term track records in trading, then wrote a book almost entirely about feelings. That combination is either a contradiction or the point. Several reads in, I’m confident it’s the point.
Library
The Trading Tribe
Read · January 2025
Thoughts
The strangest book on the shelf: half trading manual, half group therapy. Seykota's thesis is that your risk management is downstream of whether you can tolerate a feeling, and his 'ripples' process is essentially debugging with witnesses. Bizarre, and it keeps coming back to me at odd moments, which is usually the sign of a book that landed.
Learned
- Everyone gets what they want out of the market. The trader who says he wants profits but trades his feelings wants the feelings more.
- Entries and exits are opinions. Position size is how loudly you're saying them.
- A feeling tolerated is a feeling processed. A feeling suppressed is a position that grows.