Four Books That Will Make You A Profitable Futures Trader

Diakritik is a trader who recently became consistently profitable after struggling and losing for a long time. What you will see below are his thoughts on how he became profitable and, more importantly, the four books he read that made the big difference and gave him the breakthrough.

He points out that these are easy to read and understand books that were very helpful to him and packed with useful info from cover to cover:

Day Trading Micro Futures for Income by Don Singletary

My first and foremost recommendation to everyone is to follow a veteran in the industry, Don Singletary. Such a lovely and nice guy, and also a great trader!

He’s like the best friend and father/grandpa figure any beginner needs and wishes for guidance. He’s got a YouTube channel that teaches you a lot, especially about general rules and good habits of trading.

I think this is the best place to start for every beginner. You don’t need to use MACD like Don does. He’s mainly a price action trader anyway. Just get inspired by his analysis, reasoning for entering trades, his discipline, calmness, attitude and habits. Especially his habits about risk management.

His “creating a free trade” has become a core of my trading and played a big part for me in becoming profitable. His book is a great introduction to index futures trading, especially on the affordable one with micros.

Remember it covers utter basics so if you have those covered, there won’t be much of new stuff for you. Still a good read nevertheless. You can get Day Trading Micro Futures for Income book here.

The Universal Principles of Successful Trading by Brent Penfold

If I could recommend only one book regarding trading, it would be Penfold’s masterpiece. This book has everything. From really great introduction to trading all the way through to a great write-up about the three pillars of trading: Money management, Methodology and Psychology.

Penfold is a great pragmatic and has a very good, honest and realistic attitude towards the reader. He says the things as they are.

He also can explain things very clearly. He guides you to not focus on useless nonsense and noise but on the things that are actually really important, vital, and successful trading can’t be done without them.

For example, he stresses the importance of expectancy and risk of ruin, rightly so, and explains them excellently. The longer you trade, the more you appreciate this book and how much useful knowledge it contains. 

Brent was also the first trader/author I’ve seen not to parrot around how psychology is the most important part of trading and bravely called out against it. And he’s right. His take and view on this is brilliant and 100% correct in my opinion.

The part of the book about Money management is the single most useful piece of information about trading I’ve ever saw and it literally transformed my trading, creating my biggest step in the right direction. 

As a bonus, Brent put at the end his own little Market Wizards chapter and it’s just a treat to read it and absorb the information and advices provided. Get the book here.

Best Loser Wins by Tom Hougaard

Tom is a real guy and a real trader. His cooperation and classes with Dr. David Paul are legendary. I can’t recommend his YouTube channel enough as well.

The book is an instant classic and in combination with solid basics by Don Singletary, amazing in depth knowledge of how trading actually works by Brent Penfold, this book closes my holy Trinity of trading.

There was also the Eureka moment of my trading while listening to the audiobook version of this very book that changed everything for me.

I can’t remember the exact quote but Tom said something along the lines: “what differs you from the 90% is not your strategy, it’s your ability to follow the rules of your strategy”.

I’ve listened to this several times and it did the “clicking ” for me, for real. I appreciate Tom and will be forever thankful to him for this.

Market Wizards: Interviews With Top Traders by Jack D. Schwager

The classic that serves as the best sort of motivation to keep going. Invaluable advices, unique perspectives and amazing stories. Ed Seykota is my ultimate hero.

As I said, if I were to recommend just one, it’d be Brent Penfold’s The Universal Principles of Successful Trading , as it’s an utter masterpiece of real trading knowledge to me.

There are other books I enjoyed and got valuable insights and perspectives from (The New Trading for a Living by Dr. Alexander Elder; The Art and Science of Technical Analysis by Adam Grimes; or The Mental Game of Trading by Jared Tendler), I just dedicated this post to my favorite ones and the ones I found the most useful.

None of these books/YouTube channels will give you an exact strategy with rules, entries and exits but then again they don’t aim for that.

If you pay attention closely enough though, they might teach you just everything else you need in order to become profitable.

Good luck with your trading and enjoy the read!

Note: By Diakritik. Edited and presented to you by Silas Ferryman .