22. Monitor Your Stress and Fatigue Levels
The physiology of trading performance
Fatigue makes cowards of us all
Stress-induced irrational pessimism
Objective physiological feedback
State management
23. Master the Art of Recovery
Adaptive toughness and supercompensation
Getting the stress–recovery balance right
What is recovery?
Switching off to switch on: recovery strategies
Tactical recovery
24. Develop Your Physiological Fitness
Physical fitness and stress resilience
Physical activity as stress management
Trading well
The physiological platform
About the Author
steve ward specialises in helping people working in trading, investing and banking to enhance their risk-taking, improve their decision-making and to achieve and sustain high performance by utilising the latest science, research and practice from performance psychology, decision science, neuroscience, behavioural science, physiology and philosophy.
Since 2005 he has provided specialised coaching, training and consultancy services to traders and fund managers at some of the largest and highest-performing investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers, commodities trading houses, utility companies and proprietary trading groups across the globe.
Prior to starting his work with the financial sector, Steve provided sports psychology coaching to elite athletes and teams in over 30 different sports across the globe, with a particular interest in extreme, action and adventure sports. He has also provided psychological coaching for professional poker players.
Steve is the author of High-Performance Trading: 35 Practical Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Your Trading Psychology and Performance, Sports Betting to Win: The 10 Keys to Disciplined and Profitable Betting and Tradermind: Get a Mindful Edge in the Markets, and has written many articles for leading trading publications. He co-managed a team of 45 proprietary traders in London, was the consultant trading performance coach to the BBC TV series Million Dollar Traders, and spent a number of years trading stock indices and FX on his own account.
performanceedgeconsulting.co.uk
Preface: A Guide to this Book
Why do I need this book?
This book is for any trader who wants to deal with the stresses, emotions, challenges and setbacks encountered while trading the markets – and to trade at their best for the long run.
Any trader knows that trading the markets can be an intensely rewarding pursuit – but by no means a simple or stress-free one. It is possibly one of the most mentally and emotionally challenging activities anyone can pursue. Mistakes, missed opportunites and losses are unavoidable. Stress is frequent and can be intense and protracted. The toll placed on mind, body, behaviour and results can be enormous.
It is possible, however, to harness the insights of psychology, physiology and philosophy – not to remove the difficulties of trading, but to navigate them more effectively; and, indeed, to turn them to your advantage. This has been one of the key areas of focus in my work with traders and investors across the globe, at every level of experience, and across all markets over the last 15 years. The ability to manage the psychological and physiological challenges of trading the markets is key to performing at your best and maximising market returns.
This is not my first book on trading performance. High-Performance Trading remains, I hope, a helpful collection of practical, bite-sized strategies for improving any trader’s psychology – a kind of manual of exercises you can dip in and out of at need. Tradermind provides mindfulness-based approaches.
The goal of Bulletproof Trader is to offer a practical resource for traders to help them deal with the mental, emotional and physical challenges and demands of trading the markets. It is also a chance to share the latest insights from research and practice on the ground, including:
the fascinating realm of biofeedback – objective measures of how the market influences a trader’s physiology (and vice versa)
the latest ‘third wave’ of psychological techniques
practical approaches grounded in ancient performance philosophy.
All these have informed my work with my clients over the past few years.
There is nothing more rewarding, in my experience, than helping people reach their full potential in a dynamic and challenging pursuit like trading. But of course no coach can work with every trader around the world. This book allows me to be a resource for you, and share what I have seen help many other traders.
Do I need to be a particular kind of trader?
You don’t need to be a particular kind of trader to benefit from this book.
I have worked with traders from across the globe, from beginner to higly experienced and successful ‘Market Wizards’, trading every kind of market and strategy. This book is written to be relevant to all of them.
It is also, I believe, relevant to investors. They may not face emotional or psychological challenges with quite the same intensity and regularity – after all, they are not entering and exiting the market with the same frequency – but the experience is not entirely dissimilar. Especially in down times, or moments of volatility; and the times we are living in have not been lacking in those.
How is the book structured?
