Best Day Trading Books for Beginners

Reading the best day trading books greatly simplifies learning. The best books are written by the best day trading educators so that you can combine things learned online and offline.

By Alexander Voigt | Updated July 23, 2023

We may receive a commission if you click on links in this article. Learn more

Below you will find my favorite day trading books in the order of how I like them the most.

Best Day Trading Books: Top 10

Let’s discover the best books for beginner day traders, books that help expand your understanding of trading strategy development and charting, and books especially helpful for a deep understanding of trading psychology.

Table of Contents

1. How to Day Trade for a Living by Andrew Aziz

Full Title: How to Day Trade for a Living: A Beginner’s Guide to Trading Tools and Tactics, Money Management, Discipline and Trading Psychology
Author: Andrew Aziz, founder of Bear Bull Traders
Publication Date: July 28, 2016
Print Length: 366 pages
Price: $21.37 (Paperback)
Rating at Amazon: 4.6/5 (16,593 ratings)

How to Day Trade for a Living is the best day trading book going into detail about day trading patterns, momentum trading and reversal trading. Andrew Aziz is the book author and also goes into detail on how to use moving averages, the VWAP indicator and support and resistance zones to increase probabilities of success by focusing on how to day trade stocks.

The book easy-to-read for beginners and well-structured with details on:

What indicators to use
When to enter a trade
When to exit and take profits
How to employ a disciplined stop-loss

If you’re new to trading, this is your go-to book.

Offer: Click here to get educated and trained via live trading and various day trading courses by Andrew Aziz in his Bear Bull Traders Community.

2. How to Day Trade by Ross Cameron

Full Title: How to Day Trade: A Detailed Guide to Day Trading Strategies, Risk Management and Trader Psychology
Author: Ross Cameron
Publication Date: October 29, 2015
Print Length: 128 pages
Price: $28.99 (Paperback)
Rating at Amazon: 4.5/5 (1,532 ratings)

As the founder of Warrior Trading, Ross Cameron gives you an inside look into his day trading strategies like the gap and go strategy and how to choose the right stocks, manage risks and find proper entry and exit points.

But before getting into strategy, How to Day Trade introduces you to Ross Cameron’s two most important topics: finding predictable volatility with stock scanners like Trade Ideas and managing risk.

By perfecting both, you can learn how to make money even if your trades are only right 50% of the time.

Applicable to traders of all levels, the book also covers the following:

Candlestick charts
Bull flags
Exponential moving averages
How to spot profitable trade opportunities

Beyond strategy, it has to be the explanation of investor psychology. So Ross spends plenty of time discussing why most traders fail and how to avoid the pitfalls he fell prey to early in his trading days.

Moreover, you also receive a wealth of knowledge about trade formatting and learn tips and tricks to help set you apart from the average trader. Ross Cameron also offers one of the best trading courses for beginners.

Offer: Click here to get educated and trained via live trading and various day trading courses by Ross Cameron in his Warrior Trading Community.

3. Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques by Steve Nison

Full Title: Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques: Second Edition
Author: Steve Nison
Publication Date: October 1, 2001
Print Length: 299 pages
Price: $44.01 (Hardcover)
Rating at Amazon: 4.7/5 (1,988 ratings)

Steve Nison’s book outlines how versatile candlestick charting can be and how connecting it with other technical tools can add synergies to your trading.

Written in clear and concise language, Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques provides an inside look into years of Steve Nison’s studies, research and experience within financial market analysis.

He also holds the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation, which adds a lot of credibility to his teachings.

His lessons can be used by:

Equity traders
Options traders
Futures traders

Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques touch more than just the surface of technical analysis. It goes into great detail about how and why the techniques work.

The book includes hundreds of examples showing how Japanese charting techniques can be applied to almost any market.

Nison also explains how candles provide early reversal signs, improve market timing and how to use them for swing trading.

Moreover, the book also outlines the differences between Japanese and Western forms of technical analysis and how knowledge of both can give you a leg-up on the competition.

4. Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard by Mark Minervini

Full Title: Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard: How to Achieve Super Performance in Stocks in Any Market
Author: Mark Minervini
Publication Date: April 11, 2013
Print Length: 352 pages
Price: $25.99 (Hardcover)
Rating at Amazon: 4.7/5 (2,600 ratings)

Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard reveals the strategies that helped Mark Minervini achieve a 220% yearly return over five years. While detailing his proprietary Specific Entry Point Analysis (SEPA) method, Minervini also touches on topics such as risk management, self-analysis and perseverance.

What else do you learn?

How to find the best stocks before they make price gains
How to avoid costly trading mistakes
How to avoid high-risk situations
Why traditional valuation doesn’t work for super-performing stocks

Again, it’s all in the details. With over 160 examples, case studies, and recreations and commentary from Minervini’s personal trades, Trade Like a Stock Market Wizards provides you full access to his proprietary stock rating and trading system.

He also puts a lot of emphasis on trading psychology and explains why his teachings can separate you from the average trader.

5. Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by John J. Murphy

Full Title: Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets: A Comprehensive Guide to Trading Methods and Applications
Author: John J. Murphy
Publication Date: January 4, 1999
Print Length: 576 pages
Price: $35.00 (Hardcover)
Rating at Amazon: 4.7/5 (2,078 ratings)

John J. Murphy was a director at Merrill Lynch’s Technical Analysis Futures Division and a technical analyst for CNBC. His book covers the essentials of technical analysis, intermarket relationships, and stock rotation principles with examples and case studies.

You get insights into how to use moving averages, trading oscillators and contrarian indicators, learn how to identify market cycles, use proper money management, and apply trading strategies by analyzing stock trends to identify profitable trading opportunities.

In addition, John J. Murphy explains how to trade continuation and reversal patterns and implement support and resistance levels in trading.

With his 40-year background working in top positions on Wall Street, the author teaches how institutional investors approach trading the financial markets. This is especially helpful because institutions like hedge funds handle over 90% of the market volume.

6. Advanced Techniques in Day Trading by Andrew Aziz

Full Title: Advanced Techniques in Day Trading: A Practical Guide to High Probability Strategies and Methods
Author: Andrew Aziz
Publication Date: June 12, 2018
Print Length: 420 pages
Price: $29.99 (Paperback)
Rating at Amazon: 4.6/5 (2,402 ratings)

Following up on his first day trading book, Andrew Aziz is back at it again with advanced trading tactics. The new book Advanced Techniques in Day Trading expands on his beginner edition, How to Day Trade for a Living, by looking at the best trading scanners, software and trading platforms.

Andrew outlines how to spot the right stocks, trade support and resistance, and manage stress when you’re in the heat of the battle day trading stocks.

You also learn:

How to trade and not gamble
How to plan your strategy
How to plan entry and exit points and stop-losses
How to trade as a business

It has to be practicality and the book provides a detailed analysis of what to look for and step-by-step instructions for using trading scanners, and covers how to implement good risk-reward ratios and the importance of risk management.

Offer: Click here to get educated and trained via live trading and various day trading courses by Andrew Aziz in his Bear Bull Traders Community.

7. Charting and Technical Analysis by Fred McAllen

Full Title: Charting and Technical Analysis: The charting manual for investors.
Author: Fred Mcallen
Publication Date: April 6, 2012
Print Length: 575 pages
Price: $13.68 (Paperback)
Rating at Amazon: 4.6/5 (4,258 ratings)

As a day trader, you want to understand technical analysis since the majority of traders focus on this type of analysis. Price action, trading volume and investor sentiment are key parts of short-term stock market movements and understanding the cause of a move helps determine future trends.

The book teaches in-depth technical analysis and charting strategies concepts, explains how to recognize tops and bottoms, and how to use chart analysis.

McAllen provides real-world examples to help you trade and invest like the pros rather than focusing solely on theory. More importantly, Charting and Technical Analysis explain strategies in ways every reader can understand instead of using complicated financial jargon.

The book also goes beyond the adage of ‘buy low and sell high.’ Instead, you receive detailed instructions on what’s moving the market, the best time of day to buy stocks and when you need to move your money to safety.

8. The New Trading for a Living by Alexander Elder

Full Title: The New Trading for a Living: Psychology, Discipline, Trading Tools and Systems, Risk Control and Trade Management.
Author: Alexander Elder
Publication Date: October 27, 2014
Print Length: 304 pages
Price: $41.99 (Hardcover)
Rating at Amazon: 4.7/5 (916 ratings)

Alexander Elder introduces readers to time-tested concepts with new studies and trading techniques for active traders. Risk management and self-management with well-defined trading rules are at the center of his book, intending to teach you how to stay calm and disciplined in any market cycle.

The book includes concepts on how to create a trading plan, track your trades and how rate your stock picks. It also provides you with insights on how to use tools for trading strategy development.

The New Trading for a Living offers a tactical and holistic approach to day trading, where beginners might have difficulties directly understanding the whole concept since the book is written for beginners and experienced traders. Still, his systematic approach to current markets makes sense and is worth reading.

9. The Complete Penny Stock Course by Jamil Ben Alluch

Full Title: The Complete Penny Stock Course: Learn How To Generate Profits Consistently By Day Trading Penny Stocks
Author: Jamil Ben Alluch
Publication Date: April 9, 2018
Print Length: 386 pages
Price: $19.99 (Paperback)
Rating at Amazon: 4.5/5 (1,612 ratings)

Jamil Ben Alluch’s book goes into the details of how to day trade penny stocks. Penny stock trading fascinates investors due to the enormous potential such stocks potentially have. Imagine you buy a stock for $0.20, and it goes on high momentum up to $20, which grows any dollar invested in one-hundred dollars.

But the reality will quickly get you back to the ground, and you will realize that it needs proper knowledge on correctly trading penny stocks.

This is where Jamil’s book comes in. He starts by introducing you to the basic concepts of market and trading psychology and covers the basics of day trading and risk management.

Then he goes into detail on advanced trading techniques and the development of trading strategies. He directly refers to Timothy Sykes, who wrote the foreword of the book.

10. The 30-Minute Stock Trader by Laurens Bensdrop

Full Title: The 30-Minute Stock Trader: The Stress-Free Trading Strategy for Financial Freedom
Author: Laurens Bensdorp
Publication Date: January 11, 2017
Print Length: 218 pages
Price: $15.99 (Paperback)
Rating at Amazon: 4.3/5 (453 ratings)

This book is for you if you believe in quant or algorithmic trading. The 30-Minute Stock Trader provides set-by-step instructions on how to create your automated stock trading strategy by utilizing automated stock trading software.

Using historical price data and statistical backtesting, Bensdrop outlines a series of coding instructions allowing your computer to do all the heavy lifting.

So what’s covered?

Why classic investment approaches fail
Proof that automated trading works
Three proven strategies with exact numbers, entry and exit points
The secret twelve-ingredient recipe for a profitable automated trading strategy

The author combines trading psychology aspects with technical analysis, statistics, position-sizing tactics and some trading strategies used by quant hedge funds.

The book’s primary intent is to help you understand the advantage of programming to ensure high-speed trading executions with low psychology pressure by utilizing coding languages and a trading computer. Laurens sees it this way, by automating the entire day trading process, you have less time to spend in front of your monitor and instead have more time to do things you love in your free time.

Best Day Trading Books Of All Time Summary

I like the day trading books How to Day Trade for a Living by Andrew Aziz and How to Day Trade by Ross Cameron the most. They are experienced day traders and share their trading screens daily with community members. With this extensive amount of screen time, they can teach you the ins and outs of day trading in the most realistic way.

Trading books classics like Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques by Steve Nison are a great addition to detailed day trading courses since they explain specific parts of the educational concepts in even greater detail.

Day Trading Communities:

Trading Guides

FAQ

What are the benefits of reading day trading books?

The main benefit of reading a day trading book is its cost efficiency. Books are relatively cheap for the knowledge provided compared with other learning methods, such as day trading courses.

What day trading book author is the best?

Andrew Aziz and Ross Cameron are the best day trading book authors. Both prove their knowledge and expertise daily by day trading stocks in front of thousands of traders within their communities.