Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard: How to Achieve Super Performance in Stocks in Any Market

I'll start this off by saying that I'm in no way affiliated with Mr. Minervini. I'm just a Soldier and small-time individual stock trader trying to get my trading on the right track. I preordered this book as soon as it was available to do so. I mean...this is Mark Minervini, a trader of Market Wizards legend. After reading everything I could find on the internet about him, I jumped at the chance to hear what he had to say in a book, especially given the fact that I don't have the time or money to attend his live seminars or subscribe to his website. In Market Wizards, it was like pulling teeth to get Mr. Minervini to reveal any specifics of his trading, so I obviously was ecstatic that he was revealing the SEPA methodology in this book. As soon as the book arrived, I read it from cover to cover in a few hours. After one read, I could tell this was a work that I would reference again and again. The sections on following the leaders, chart reading and risk management are among the best lessons on trading I've ever read. In the last 10+ years of trading, I've literally read hundreds of books on trading and I've spend thousands of hours researching and studying charts. I have shelves and shelves of trading books, not to mention all the courses, DVDs, PDFs, and Kindle books I've collected on trading. While most of these things I've read aren't worth a second look, I would put Trade Like A Stock Market Wizard in the top five books on the market. I read this book no less than once a month in its entirety and specific sections several times a week. I have two hard copies so I can highlight and I have a Kindle edition of the book. Mark covers so many critical aspects of trading that I'm constantly cross-checking what I'm doing against what he's saying. To say that his methods have turned my trading around is an understatement. I went from blowing my account out three times and spending thousands of dollars and countless hours looking for the mythical Holy Grail to doubling my account in the six months since I received this book. Some might say that it's dumb luck, but this is the first time I've ever felt in control of my trading. Mark put his methodology out there in such a clear and concise manner that it instantly clicked and I was immediately able to implement the methods into my own trading. It was like I was finally able to put all the pieces together and string a bunch of good trades together while controlling my risk. I'm becoming more and more a master of hitting singles and doubles, instead of my normal tendency to swing for the homerun. My main objective is to gain a multiple of my risk and do it over and over again, just like Mark teaches. While this book might not be for everyone, I think that anyone reading this book can come away with a solid understanding of a method that has stood the test of many bull and bear markets. It has certainly made a significant impact on my trading and given me a feeling of control over the last 6 months and 30+ trades that I've never felt before. Thanks, Mark. I'm eagerly awaiting book number 2!!

This was a good read for sound advice on a particular trading strategy. I took 7 pages of hand-written notes and I have been trading for 3 years with some serious professional education. Some points: specialize in a particular trading style; buy on the uptrend, not hoping for a bounce off the bottom; 5-point Specific Entry Point Analysis, which mixes fundamentals (earnings, revenue, new products/services, relative strength) with chart analysis (technicals; cup and handle, high tight flag), good description of the 4 stages of a stock cycle (always trade in stage 2); the fallacy of P/E (quality stocks cost more to buy so have higher P/E); some risk management, but read Think and Trade Like a Champion for that and position sizing. "Think and Trade" will be a very quick read if you read them back-to-back as 80% is a review/copy of the first book but not as much fundamentals background (both worth reading). I like and agree with most of the content. I don't agree with the trailing stop loss placement advice as there is scant mention of support/resistance technical analysis. I also don't agree with who he thinks are the market participants for a a certain given volume, which is important to know who you are trading with. For example, a 500% spike in volume is not buy-side institutions (BlackRock, Fidelity, Vanguard) as is taught in this book. But I like the discussion about retail trying to get back to break even and how volume drops off before a breakout (shakeout and supply/demand). Also, MACD might be overused by retail and laggy to be of use anymore for entry/exit signals.

This book is perfect for someone at my level of investing: I love it, and am actually a professional artist with a physics degree (don't ask), and I've always "dabbled" in stocks ever since my Aunt Lydia showed me how to set up a brokerage account in the 80's. But I always felt guilty about making money from it, due to some Puritan background issues, so that wasn't my goal, until now. I actually need to send my children to college, and that requires more than what I make as an artist, so I have motivation to increase my capital by 1000% (unfortunately, that's how much college education costs). Anyway, the Investors Business Daily, a fantastic newspaper, has helped me enormously, as well as How to Make Money in Stocks. However, I find I fall asleep when I read that book. And I have only made it to 1968 in their stock charts. And then I signed up for MarketSmith, a wonderful graphs and tutorial program associated with the IBD, in January 2020. And I made a trade with AMD, oh, and Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Iphi, Now, that raised my portolio by 40%, which was encouraging. But I still felt clueless. I also really have emotional trouble dropping losers quickly enough. So, when Marketsmith hosted Mark Minervini on their weekly chat, I was drawn to his organized approach to stocks. Also, he was extremely concrete about numbers, about recommendations, about the big picture (which is something I find blurry), and he recommended Walmart, an unexpected one (I didn't buy it though, cannot stand shopping at Walmart). And I then followed him on Twitter, and saw that he's teaching a workshop in November, online. Well, due to the pandemic, I have no weddings to paint in November. Normally I'd be very busy, so I figure I'll spend 5000$ on the class (that is a very small percentage of my gains at this point), and I asked the Marketsmith people what I need to do to prepare. They told me to read Mark's books. I dreaded this, because the How to Make Money in Stocks puts me to sleep (literally), and I used to try to read Warren Buffet's mentor's book about Interpreting Balance Sheets, and I could never quite finish Lefevre's book (which I know is very important to get through). But I bought the books a few days ago on Amazon, they arrived this weekend, and I am already over halfway done with the first one. And it's great. It's written so clearly. It contains many of the same concepts as William O Neil's book, but it's as if William O Neil assumed his readers have all been to Harvard Business School, and Mark writes for people like me: intelligent, curious, yet unfamiliar with net profit margin (net makes me think of fishing). So, I heartily recommend this book. Also, I have made so many mistakes, lost a lot of money along the way, and he covers so many of the errors that I consistently make. And it's very concrete. The Earnings Surprise, for example. I recently experienced that with Fortinet, very sad. And I had noticed it with Adobe last year, and didn't understand it, and it happened with Chegg (got faked out by it). That alone is worth the book. Hopefully I will finish reading it today, then I can start on the next one, and then I'll sign up for his class. I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to take a class from such a brilliant person.

I will present a summary of the trading method used in this book so that readers of this review can better follow my comments later. The major steps are as follows: (1) Do not look for low P/E. Superperforming stocks tend to have a high P/E due to high growth (2)Buy in phase 2 of the stock 4 phase cycle.The author provides a screening template based mainly on moving averages with IBD relative strength and price location in relation to 52 week high and low (3)Buy the market leader in an industry or the second in line. (4) Pick stocks with strong fundamentals summarized by the following: (i) 20-25% earnings increase year to year. (ii) Earnings acceleration quarter to quarter. No specifuc number provided as guideline. (iii)Be sure the earnings are of good quality by reading the quarterly report . Details in Chapter 8. (5) When the market is transitioning from a bear to a bull market , look for newly emeging market leaders. They tend to bottom out before the general market. As is obviously apparent and is confirmed by the author on page 192 , he advocates a techno-fundamental approach to finding stocks. While the technical parameters presented above, are easy to implement and incorporate into a scanning software , the fundamental parameters are more challenging. Even though, one can scan for stocks that show a certain earnings growth year to year and quarter to quarter, assessing the quality of earnings requires studying the quarterly report and is a more time consuming and challenging endeavour. I started trading several years ago using a purely technical method based on a totally different set of technical signals than the ones mentioned above, which I then modified to include company fundamentals. Incorporating company fundamentals in scanning for stocks remained a challenge until I found a method in a book, published prior to this one, that incorporates year to year earnings increase, quarterly earnings acceleration and earnings quality into a system that allows scanning for stocks without reading the quarterly report. Since then my returns improved from near 25 percent to above 50 percent per year. For those interested in exploring further, this method is known as the reshe system. From my experience, I learned that it is critical to develop your own trading system to succeed. Copying someone else's system rarely works. As such I only used one idea from this book, the volatility contraction concept, to incorporate in my system . I use this to look more closely at the most promising trade candidate stocks that my scan produces. Finally in regards to whether the author's results are related to the bull market in the late 1990's. The author himself admits that this was a factor . Refer to page 6 where he says, Quote, " Then something wonderful happened, my preparation intersected with opportunity. I had been honing my skills for years and in 1990 I was able to take advantage of a new emerging bull market".

Mr Mark Minervini really does not require a certificate from the likes of me. His track record is goood! This book is worth your time and money and is a good second book to read. I have read this book a few times and have been trading successfully for over 10 years. So I feel I am a bit qualified to write a book review and give my opinions. This book is mostly a rehash of the learnings of Mr Mark Minervini from the various masters before himself as he himself admits in the book. To begin with I recommend O'Neil's "How to make money in stocks- 4th edition" as a complete book. That book has set such high standards that it is very difficult to break that standard. I would rank that book a final five. Mr Minervini has given credit to various traders from whom he has learnt a lot. So his obvious difficulty is how to write ALL his secrets for free to get it up to a new high standard. That he can not and will not do, so it is not possible to rate this book higher than four. But he will be satisfied knowing that. His personal credentials are a perfect five ! I learnt only his VCP method as a new tool in my trading arsenal. The rest was known to me over years of reading books written over the past 80-90 years. But other readers might find something interesting / new. Mr Minervini has written a very readable book with interesting quotes. He has been as honest as realistically expected. What did you expect for 10 princely bucks ? I agree with the other reviewers about his lack of detailing of his personal trading diary for any period. To be more specific, he could have selected a particular stock where he made a lot and explained how he mis/ handled the stock through its life. On several occasions, he has written that the stock moved up 80% or whatever but he infact may have made only 15% to 25% before selling it due to some volatility. My only worry is that people think this is a holy grail and rate this a five for that reason. These techniques work over seasons and years. I do not think I can use this for day trading. But truly Mr Minervini's genuine constraint is that he cannot repeat anything already in IBD. The meat is already been written for a long time by O' Neil ! Overall a very well written book worth a trader's time. Another word of caution- a lot of beginners will suffer "death by a thousand cuts" if they read only this book and trade. In other words you will suffer too many stop losses. You need to pay up for his website. He has not been able to cover every aspect of trading without the risk of repeating contents of other well known traders. So he was forced to leave a few gaps. Read O' Neil as well. That book is far far more detailed. I am surprised people have written the opposite.

As most other traders on the globe, I myself have read numerous books on finance and trading in particular. Most of the reputable books written by well known authors in the trading realm. I came across Mark's book because I have subscribed to his tweeter feed. At first I wasn't sure if he was just always promoting his book to compensate from the sales. But I did more research on him and his background. On his website he mentions his annual event that he hosts, and last year he had David Ryan as guest speaker at that event. If you haven't heard of David Ryan, please read Market wizard by Jack Schwager. I said to myself if David Ryan had written a foreword to this book I should at least read it and evaluate it's content. I must say I was very impressed. Literally, this book may become a classic, he really explains what is vitally important to look for when searching for good companies to trade in. I found that the last two chapters in the book are the most important and he emphasizes on the importance of risk management. He brings clarity on the stop loss rule and the mathematical results if your stock is 10% below your purchase price and you haven't sold it. Mark mentioned in a podcast on @don'ttalkaboutyourstocks, that he had wanted to add chapters based on when to sell to keep most of your gains,but his publisher said it would be too much content. I realized after many of my trades, that the selling part is actually more important than the buying part. Well, he pointed out that if he were to write another book he'll add that in. For those of you contemplating on purchasing this book, at the price that it sells for it is worth the investment. It will save you the cost of the book and more if you apply his concepts. I would imagine that this book could be good for beginners, but only after you have read William O'Neil's book: How to make money in stocks, first. Basically Mark brings clarity to many of the questions in that book. Congratulations Mark on a well written book.

Great book

In this work author Mark Minervini lays open his hitherto proprietary trading method called SEPA (specific entry point analysis). I was not only impressed by the efficacy of the authors approach but by how thoroughly his winning system is laid open for the reader. Every conceivable facet of the stock trading profession is examined through the prism of Minervini's 30 year journey from initial failure to massive success on Wall Street. Chapters are logically structured and very easy to read. Generally, an overview of each topic is followed by a discussion on the finer points. Finally the reader is given detailed steps in the practical application of the topic under discussion. Charts, graphs and even the authors hand written research notes are included in the explanations and case studies. Tightly edited, there is no superfluous content and the book succeeds in efficiently imparting an abundance of wisdom and actionable information. Topics covered include, but are not limited to; psychology, risk management, stock screening, identifying incipient leadership, technical and fundamental analysis, stage analysis, common errors in conventional wisdom, creating a trend template, earnings maturation cycles, estimate revisions and guidance, inventory analysis, identifying pivot points, probabilities and position sizing. As the author explains, experience cannot be force fed. Nevertheless, diligent study of this book, and application of its principles, will certainly reduce the learning curve and help the reader to dramatically improve his or her results. Inveterate readers of trading books can be forgiven for getting the distinct impression that some of these authors have never actually traded real money successfully, let alone achieved spectacular results. So how can their publications really help the people who buy them? Readers will have no such concerns with this book. Author Mark Minervini is widely respected and acknowledged as a champion trader with a performance record that is legendary, hence his inclusion in the venerable "Market Wizards" series of books by Jack Schwager. Moreover, this book was written well after the author had already made his fortune. If you are looking to improve your trading and feel that priceless insights from a genuine trading champion would help then this is the book for you - 5 STARS A magnificent effort Mark, well done

I have read both ‘Trade Like A Stock Market Wizard’ and ‘Think & trade Like a Champion’ multiple times over, having first read ‘Trade Like A Stock Market Wizard’ in April 2018. I have been trading for circa 2 years, originally focussing on UK AIM- listed stocks. After a brief period of success (during a roaring bull market, in which even a fool could have made a £ or ££), I came to realise that all the truly great companies (think Amazon, Facebook, Google etc. etc.) tended to emerge from the Capitalist-King of the world; the good old US-of-A. I then started researching UK- based brokers and found that it was achievable to partake in this roaring market. My head was then turned. I have read both books 3 times over (if not more if considering the individual chapter reads) and each re-read has provided a deeper and more thorough insight into Mark’s method and his work, which takes inspiration and initial guidance from many of the principles laid out by William O’Neill. This is not a re-fabrication of William O’Neill’s work. Oh no! This is completely original, raw and truly information beyond belief. Mark leaves no stone unturned and his desire to impart all his knowledge (over 30 years!!) into this book shines through. From start to finish, both books cover off a whole trading strategy. No wonder I now refer to it as my bible! If ever you are in doubt, re-reading the appropriate chapters (if not all!) is a great confirmer and confidence builder. Mark’s method is truly timeless. He often refers back to stocks spanning decades and you will begin to build an appreciation for how human behaviour doesn’t change over time and that patterns represent themselves time and time again. By applying Mark’s filtering skills to find these stocks and then applying a Specific Entry Point Analysis (SEPA – Mark’s ‘Golden Nugget’) to these stocks, you can then start to define high reward: low risk entry points, whilst also have a good grasp on sell violations and risk management. The complete cycle!! Post reading, I decided then to attend Mark’s 2017 Master Trader Program – held in the beautiful Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. If you think the books make good reading, wow!!! – the seminar was UNREAL!!... my thoughts as follows: I honestly cannot put into words how informative and well-structured the whole weekend was - clearly this has been many months in the making. Personally, coming from the UK and having viewed this as a 'risky' investment, I was a little unsure as to what to expect. I was thrilled to find that the accommodation and location was perfect, the mix of experience of attendees and the diverse of geographies was fantastic and Mark Minvervini and David Ryan portrayed their investment style (and individual traits and personalities) in such an easy-to-learn and fun manner. Whilst both are very passionate about what they do, Mark is very different to David and I think the mix in personas made the whole event very fun and enjoyable. No stone was left upturned and, to be completely honest, I am very much hoping that I can return next year. One thing I did take away from me is that this journey is never complete - you are always learning. Take for instance my first trade since returning to the UK; AMRN, Power Plat setup with a VCP forming in the high tight flag pattern with reduced volume. It looked a nice setup and so I tested the water with a light position, given my 'newness' to this chart pattern and the overall market. Unfortunately, I was stopped out. However, it's strange to think pleased about that! Normally, I would look to increase my stop and skew my risk: reward ratio, but now I can sit back and analyse the trade and look to see where I went wrong. So, in short, the trade was flawed however my discipline was excellent. I'm proud of that as that was an area of mine that I found most difficult. (This trade was made during a difficult trading period and my entry point was a little early – I’d say I was a little trigger happy to make a trade!). You will not be disappointed by either the books or the seminar. To achieve greatness, you have to invest in yourself first, right? Don’t overly dwell on the cost of the seminar – it is worth every $$$ and that’s from someone travelling from the UK!

トレード始めたい人が読むべき本(もちろん他にも読むべき本はたくさんある)。長く続けたい人は特にリスク管理について書かれていることが重要になってくると思う。

You won't be the same person after read this. The way you see stocks will change drastically. Amazing content.

Ich warne: Dieses Buch hat es in sich. Faktenreich, tolle Chartbeispiele und SEPA, eine von Minervini entwickelte Methode, um Wachstumsaktien zu identifizieren. In der Investmentwelt gibt es verschiedene Strategien. Die einen kaufen passiv ETF und halten diese für Ewigkeiten nach der Buy-and-hold Methode. Dann gibt es Value Investoren wie Graham oder Buffett, die anhand von Fundamentaldaten unterbewertete Aktien suchen und diese erwerben. Doch im Investmenthorizont gibt es eine weitere Strategie, die leider zu unrecht von vielen Investoren gemieden wird: Growth + Momentum Investing, also das Kaufen von Aktien mit steigenden Umsätzen, Gewinnen, Margen sowie Preisen. Während im Value Investing zu "teure" Aktien gemieden werden, sind im Growth Investing genau diese Aktien von Interesse. Denn ein hohes P-E-Ratio kann darauf hinweisen, dass Anleger auf Gewinnwachstum setzen. Das ist ein positives Signal, denn diese Erwartung zeigt das Vertrauen in die weitere Entwicklung des Unternehmens. Zudem existiert der Momentum Effekt, eine bis 1700 nachgewiesene, starke Marktanomalie: Aktien, die über einen bestimmten Zeitraum gestiegen sind, setzen diesen Trend fort. Minervini kombiniert in seinem Buch die Analyse von Fundamentaldaten, technische Analyse sowie die Auswahl idealer Einstiegszeitpunkte in Wachstumsaktien und belegt seine Kriterien. Das Buch ist verständlich geschrieben, führt zusätzlich ins Money und Risikomanagement ein und eröffnet eine neue Investmentstrategie mit großen Potentialen. Das Buch ist ein Muss sowohl für Value Investoren, die über den Tellerrand schauen wollen, als auch für jene, die wissen wollen, wie man Aktien mit >100% Wertzuwachs in kurzer Zeit systematisch identifizieren kann. Natürlich gelingt nicht jedes Investment, denn letztlich sucht man sich lediglich Aktien mit hoher Wachstumswahrscheinlichkeit aus, aber die Investmentkriterien in Kombination mit intelligentem Risiko- und Moneymanagement versprechen gute Renditen :)

O melhor dos melhores! Este livro é o mais completo que já li sobre o estudo de tendências, comportamento de preço, volume, e fundamentos de empresas que possuem uma performance acima da média na bolsa. Estudo já há algum técnicas para seguir tendencia no mercado mas gosto de misturar comportamento de preço (demanda do mercado) com fundamentos da empresa. Já li muitos livros de análise técnica dos mais diversos assuntos e também já li vários dos livros indicados pelo Florian Bartunek, Henrique Bredda, Dynamo entre outras. O livro do Minervini é fora de série. Aborda diversos assuntos de maneira muito esclarecedora. Pra quem já estuda tem bastante tempo, ele faz muito bem o trabalho de juntar vários conteúdos distintos e te entregar uma filosofia de investimentos que te faz focar nas informações essenciais. Definitivamente dos mais de 30 livros que li, este está no top 3. Por causa disso minhas próximas duas leituras são os outros 2 livros dele. Vale cada centavo!