Mark Douglas Tribute

Very sadly, Mark Douglas, renowned trader, mentor, coach and author, passed away on September 12, 2015, at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Mark wrote two books on the psychology of trading; The Disciplined Trader and Trading in the Zone. The book that made him famous in trading circles was 'Trading in the Zone' released in 2000. It is a book I own and would recommend to anyone who wants to become a better trader.

Mark is considered to be one of the founders when it comes to trading psychology and coaching. He was originally a broker for Merrill Lynch. As a trader in his own right, he then went on with the creation of his own educational CDs and workshops. Mark travelled extensively around the world for over 30 years with his coaching and speaking engagements.

Trade with Precision (TWP) has been fortunate enough to have a long association with Mark Douglas. TWP organised a Trading Symposium as a fundraiser for victims of the Japanese and New Zealand earthquakes in 2011. Mark Douglas committed his time as a guest speaker straight away. On the strength of Mark’s early commitment it allowed CEO and Founder of TWP, Nick McDonald, to attract such luminary guest speakers as Larry Williams, Jake Bernstein, Linda Bradford Raschke, Jack Schwager, Larry Pesavento and van K. Tharp to name just a few.

All speakers contributed their time free of charge as their contribution to the fundraiser. It was a tremendous success.

Due to his popularity and large following, Mark Douglas could not accept all of his many invitations to be a guest speaker, consultant, advisor or personal mentor to the trading industry.  However, Nick McDonald, Graeme Kennerley and Simon Clarke, all members of the TWP team, did have the privilege to be personally mentored by Mark Douglas in very recent times.  The benefit of this mentoring is now being passed on to our clients via the educational and personal mentoring services available.

Central to Mark’s teaching was to flawlessly execute your trading strategy so that, over a large enough sample set of trades, your higher probabilities of success will show up as profitable trading.

 ”Trade a simple trading system with well-defined entry and exit points. Make a commitment to trade this system exactly according to the rules. You need to make a very strong commitment here and not play any games with yourself. The object of this exercise is to work through any resistance you may have to following your rules ...Your objectives are to (1) learn the skill of flawless execution by learning that you can follow the rules you set forth for yourself and (2) to incorporate a belief into your mental system about the nature of probable outcomes so that you believe you can make money in the long run with your trading system, if, of course, you can execute it properly."

From Mark Douglas, The Disciplined Trader.

I’m sure many of you will recognise much of what we have in common with the Mark Douglas philosophy on trading.

His passing away has taken a huge resource from our trading world. Luckily, there is an ongoing commitment to his legacy and unpublished works by Mark Douglas will be made available.

See the website: www.MarkDouglas.com for more details.

Regards,

Graeme Kennerley

The TWP Team