The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone

Every decision is a trade. Learn to think about the ones you should do -- and the ones you shouldn't.

Trading books generally break down into two categories: the ones which claim to teach you how to make money trading, and the memoir-style books recounting scandals and bad behavior. But the former don't have profitable trades to teach; if they did they'd keep those trades to themselves. And the latter are frequently entertaining, but they don't leave you with much you can apply in your own life. The Laws of Trading is different.

All of our relationships and decisions involve trading at some level. This is a book about decision-making through the lens of a professional prop trader. For years, behavioral and cognitive scientists have shown us how human decision-making is flawed and biased. But how do you learn to avoid these problems in day-to-day decisions where you have to react in real-time? What are the important things to think about and to act on? The world needs a book by a prop trader who has lived, breathed and taught trading for a living, drawing upon years of insights on the trading floor in real markets, good and bad, whether going sideways, crashing, or bubbling over. If you can master the decision-making skills needed to profitably trade in modern markets, you can master decision-making in all walks of life. This book will teach you exactly those skills.

• Introduces, develops, and applies one law per chapter, making it easy not only to remember useful concepts, but also to have them at the ready in any situation.
• Shows you how to find and think about the "special edge" of your organization, and yourself.
• Teaches you how to handle the interaction of people with artificially intelligent (AI) machines that make decisions, a skill that is rapidly becoming essential in the AI-driven economy of the future.
• Includes a "bonus" digital ancillary, an Excel spreadsheet with various worked examples that expand on the scenarios described in the book.

Do you need to make rational decisions in a competitive environment? Almost everyone does. This book will teach you the tools that let you do your job better.

AGUSTIN LEBRON began his career as a trader and researcher at Jane Street Capital, one of the largest market-making firms in the world. Over the years he traded many kinds of securities: equities, futures, commodities, options, and an assortment of other derivatives, and has created, developed and implemented several successful trading strategies. He currently runs the consulting firm Essilen Research, where he is dedicated to helping clients integrate modern decision-making approaches in their business.