What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (1994) is the story of a trader’s rise to the top and the bad decisions that cost him a fortune. It examines the psychological and behavioral dimensions of market trading and asks why traders sometimes abandon all reason and allow losses to keep mounting until they become unmanageable. It explains not only how losses can be avoided but also why avoiding them is far more important than making money if you want to succeed.

• Traders who want to understand how psychology might affect their decision-making
• People who want to understand how we rationalize and justify loss
• Anyone interested in getting rich by trading

Jim Paul grew up in a poor family in Kentucky. He later became a futures trader and lost a million dollars by making a bad investment decision. Paul went on to work as a vice president at Morgan Stanley.

Brendan Moynihan is the managing director of Marketfield Asset Management as well as a professor of finance at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Financial Origami: How the Wall Street Model Broke.