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18 Traders. 18 Journeys. One Timeless Truth About Markets.
Inside the minds of India’s most successful traders — their struggles, systems, psychology, failures, discipline, and edge. Discover why mindset beats indicators, why psychology trumps prediction, and why discipline outlasts shortcuts.
Trader Interviews
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Pages of Wisdom
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Real Trading Wisdom
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Pillars: Psychology + Risk + Strategy
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About the book
Why This Book Is Different
Most trading books hand you indicators and chart patterns. This book hands you something far more valuable — access to the minds of traders who have survived decades of market chaos.
Every year, thousands of traders enter the markets armed with strategies, indicators, and the latest software. And every year, the vast majority of them fail. Not because their strategies are wrong — but because their psychology is.
The Little Book of Giant Traders takes you behind the screens of 18 of India’s most consistently successful traders. Through intimate, deeply honest interviews, author Shishir Asthana reveals what really separates the survivors from the statistics:
How they think about risk when everyone else panics. How they rebuild after devastating losses. How they maintain discipline when greed screams “more.” How they’ve adapted — not once, but repeatedly — to markets that change faster than any strategy can keep up with.
This is not a book of tips. It’s a book of transformation. Every chapter is a window into a trader’s soul — their failures, breakthroughs, and the hard-won principles that keep them profitable year after year.
"The real edge in trading is mastery over yourself."
What makes this book rare: Every insight comes from real traders with real track records — not theoretical models or backtested fantasies. These are lessons paid for in blood, sweat, and capital.
🛡️
Risk Management
Learn how elite traders protect their capital in every market condition — and why position sizing is the unsung hero of long-term survival.
🧠
Trading Psychology
Understand the mental frameworks that keep professionals calm while amateurs panic. Master the inner game that determines 80% of your results.
📊
Position Sizing
Discover the exact frameworks successful traders use to decide how much to risk on every trade — and why getting this wrong kills more accounts than bad entries.
💪
Emotional Control
Learn the techniques real traders use to manage fear, greed, revenge trading, and the emotional rollercoaster that destroys most accounts.
🔄
Adaptability
Markets evolve. Strategies expire. The traders in this book reveal how they continuously reinvent their approach without losing their core edge.
🎯
Consistency
Profitable trading isn’t about one big win — it’s about showing up with the right process, day after day. Learn how the best build systems that compound over decades.
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Survival Mindset
Before you can win big, you must survive long enough. These traders share the brutal lessons that taught them survival is the first — and most important — edge.
The Real Problem
You've Read The Books. Learned The Indicators. Still Losing.
You’ve studied candlestick patterns. You know what RSI and MACD mean. You’ve paper-traded and felt ready. Then you entered the real market — and everything fell apart.
Your entries were fine. Your analysis was reasonable. But something happened that no strategy course prepared you for: your emotions took over.
The hard truth: 90% of traders lose money not because they lack knowledge, but because they lack the psychological infrastructure to execute what they know. Fear makes them exit too early. Greed makes them hold too long. Revenge trading after a loss destroys their entire week. And the cycle repeats.
No amount of technical analysis can fix a broken trading psychology. And yet, almost every trading book, course, and YouTube video focuses exclusively on what to trade — while completely ignoring how to think while trading.
The solution
Learn From Traders Who've Already Solved This
The 18 traders in this book have collectively survived market crashes, regulatory changes, black swan events, and their own worst impulses. They’ve been where you are — and they made it through.
Their stories aren’t sanitized success narratives. They’re brutally honest accounts of failure, self-doubt, devastating drawdowns, and the specific mental shifts that turned everything around.
- How a trader rebuilt after losing 80% of his capital — and what he changed in his psychology to never repeat it
- The exact morning routine one trader uses to eliminate emotional decision-making before the market opens
- Why the most profitable trader in the book risks only 0.5% per trade — and how that discipline compounds into extraordinary returns
- The "survival first" framework that keeps veteran traders alive during market chaos when others blow up
- How experienced traders handle losing streaks without losing confidence or changing their system
Meet the author
Shishir Asthana
Author · Financial Journalist · Trading Psychology Researcher
Shishir Asthana is a Senior Editor at Moneycontrol and the voice behind GuruSpeak, a column that brings readers face-to-face with India’s top traders. His insights are shaped by thirty years in the markets, working on both the buy and sell side, and a rich career in financial journalism
His background in financial journalism gave him something rare: the ability to ask the questions that traders never get asked. Not “what indicator do you use?” but “what do you tell yourself when you’re staring at a 30% drawdown?” Not “what’s your strategy?” but “how did you survive your worst year?”
The result is a book that reads less like a trading manual and more like a masterclass in human psychology — told through the voices of people who have staked their livelihoods on understanding themselves.
"Shishir Asthana brings together years of conversations with elite traders to uncover the invisible traits behind long-term success."
The giant traders
Meet The 18 Traders Who Changed Everything
Different styles, different timeframes, different philosophies — united by psychological mastery and disciplined execution.
Non-directional Intra-day Trader
Jitendra Jain
Fear Beats Greed
Jitendra Jain’s journey through the ruthless world of options trading is a gripping story of risk, collapse, and reinvention. After an incredible streak of 149 winning trades, devastating losses shattered his confidence and forced him to rebuild from the ground up. Instead of chasing greed, he built his philosophy around calculated fear, discipline, and probability. Today, his structured trading operation manages thousands of lots with precision and rigorous risk management. But the real intrigue lies deeper—how does a trader continue embracing risk after being repeatedly broken by it?
“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing”
Non-directional intra-day Trader
Kirubakaran Rajendran
Turning Data Into Destiny
Kirubakaran Rajendran—known simply as Kiru—has achieved something rare in the world of trading: cult-like admiration without ever seeking the spotlight. From a modest Chennai household to becoming one of India’s most respected algorithmic traders, his journey is filled with crushing losses, obsessive experimentation, and relentless self-transformation. Armed with statistics, systems, and automation, he turned market chaos into a science—and then chose to share that knowledge freely in Tamil for thousands of aspiring traders. But what truly sets Kiru apart is not just his success in decoding markets, but the deeper question his journey raises: can human emotions ever be eliminated from trading?
“In God we trust. All others must bring data.”
Non-directional intra-day Trader
Santosh Pasi
Theta Hunter
Santosh Pasi belongs to a rare breed of traders who combine mathematics, technology, and market intuition with exceptional precision. From working at a leading IT firm to becoming a full-time options trader, his journey reflects relentless curiosity and disciplined mastery. While most traders focus on charts, Santosh built his edge through volatility, probability distributions, and the deeper mathematics of options pricing. His most remarkable achievement came in 2015, when he single-handedly revived and rebuilt the globally used Options Oracle platform after it had collapsed. Yet beyond the code and calculations lies a fascinating question—what does a trader truly see in markets when numbers begin to speak louder than price itself?
“Risk management is the most important thing to be well understood. Undertrade, undertrade, undertrade is my second piece of advice. Whatever you think your position ought to be, cut it at least in half.”
Non-directional intra-day Trader
Sourabh Sisodiya
The Disciplined Trader
Born into a successful jewellery business family, Sourabh Sisodiya could have chosen comfort over uncertainty. Instead, he stepped into the unforgiving world of trading, drawn by the intellectual challenge and limitless possibilities of the markets. Early success inflated confidence, but painful losses soon exposed the difference between luck and skill. Rather than walking away, Sourabh rebuilt himself through disciplined study, emotional control, and relentless self-improvement. Over time, trading evolved from speculation into a deeply structured process rooted in consistency, learning, and self-mastery. His journey ultimately raises a profound question: can anyone truly conquer the markets without first conquering themselves?
“Trading is not about the markets. It’s about you and how you manage yourself in relation to the markets.”
Intraday Directional Trader
Asit Baran Pati
Trading Redemption
Asit Baran Pati’s trading journey is not a polished tale of uninterrupted success, but a raw and deeply human story of collapse, resilience, and reinvention. From the structured world of investment banking at firms like UBS and Bank of America to the chaotic battlefield of leveraged options trading, Asit has experienced both euphoric highs and devastating breakdowns. Early success fuelled overconfidence, while crushing losses pushed him to the edge financially and emotionally. Yet each setback only deepened his understanding of markets, psychology, and himself. Today, he stands as a trader shaped not by perfection, but by survival. And perhaps that is what makes his story so compelling—how many times can a person rebuild before the struggle itself becomes the edge?
“The consistency you seek is in your mind, not in the markets”
Intraday Directional Trader
Lakshya Singh Baghel
Capital and Capability
Lakshya Singh Baghel—better known as Super Trader Lakshya—stands apart in the trading world for one unusual reason: he chose visibility in an industry built on mystery. By openly sharing his trades and market views online, he invited both admiration and scrutiny, building a loyal following while creating his identity entirely from scratch. Without inherited market legacy or institutional backing, his journey became one of relentless self-belief, reinvention, and learning through uncertainty. What began as curiosity about trading evolved into an obsession with mastering risk and proving himself in public. But the real question his story leaves behind is this—what drives someone to build everything from nothing while the world watches every success and failure unfold in real time?
“If you personalise losses, you can’t trade.”
Intraday Directional Trader
Madan Kumar
Psychology over Strategy
In Indian trading circles, Madan Kumar is spoken about with a level of respect usually reserved for mentors, not market participants. For many traders, meeting him is less an interaction and more a pilgrimage. Rising from a modest middle-class background in Chennai, Madan built his success not through prediction or shortcuts, but through relentless discipline, deep psychological understanding, and years of painstaking manual backtesting. While others searched for the perfect strategy, he mastered the far harder battle—the mind itself. His publicly documented journey of compounding a modest trading account into crores became proof that systematic trading can work when paired with patience and conviction. But perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Madan’s philosophy is this: in a world obsessed with being smarter than the market, why does he believe true success comes from surrendering the ego completely?
“I always say that you could publish my trading rules in the newspaper and no one would follow them. The key is consistency and discipline.”
Positional Trader
Deepak Singh Tanwar
From Dial-up to Dubai
Deepak Singh Tanwar’s journey feels almost improbable—a boy from a small Rajasthan village arriving in Mumbai with limited means, only to find himself drawn into the mysterious world of the stock market. Starting as an office boy at a brokerage firm, he quietly absorbed the pulse of the trading floor, spending nights hand-drawing charts and decoding market behaviour long before technology simplified the process. Through personal loss, financial hardship, and years of struggle, he transformed himself into a seasoned market professional driven by curiosity and resilience. But what makes Deepak’s story truly unforgettable is this: how does someone with no roadmap, no privilege, and no certainty continue moving forward until the impossible slowly becomes inevitable?
“One of the hardest things to learn is to get out at the right time. To let your winners run and cut your losses short sounds easy, but it’s the hardest thing in the world to do.”
Positional Trader
Navy Ramawat
Trading the Clear Blue Skies
Navy Ramavat represents a rare contradiction in the Indian trading world—a highly disciplined trader operating far from the country’s financial centres, yet building a professional trading ecosystem that rivals established firms. What began as curiosity about a group of successful traders in Indore soon revealed something far more extraordinary: a team-driven culture built on process, accountability, and calculated aggression in markets where most prefer safety. While others chased conventional low-risk strategies, Navy and his team chose bold directional trading, guided by clean charts, deep conviction, and emotional discipline. But perhaps the most fascinating part of his story is this—how did a trader from outside the traditional financial hubs create a culture strong enough to make others leave secure careers and follow his vision into uncertainty?
“The market has a rhythm, and you have to learn to dance with it. There are certain times of day when the market moves, andcertain times when it doesn’t. Understanding these rhythms is more important than any indicator.”
Positional Trader
Nooresh Merani
The Opportunist Trader
Nooresh Merani belongs to a rare category of traders who challenge not just the markets, but the very assumptions on which most traders operate. While an entire generation chased conventional careers abroad, he chose the uncertainty of the stock market—and was immediately tested by a market crash in his very first week. Instead of seeking certainty, Nooresh built his philosophy around probability, timing, and self-awareness. From questioning the value of stock selection through his “random portfolio” concept to tracking insider buying patterns with obsessive precision, his approach blends curiosity, logic, and unconventional thinking. Yet the deeper intrigue lies here: what happens when a trader stops trying to predict the market—and begins trying to understand human behaviour instead?
“I don’t predict. I just take advantage of what is.”
Positional Trader
Prashant Shah
Noiseless yet Effective
Prashant Shah belongs to a rare breed of traders who are not satisfied with simply using tools—they feel compelled to reinvent them. While most market participants rely on ready-made software and conventional indicators, Prashant chose to build an entire analytical ecosystem from scratch, driven by an obsession to understand how markets truly behave beneath the surface. His pioneering work in noiseless charts, cross-asset analysis, and custom-built trading systems has influenced traders far beyond India. Yet what makes his journey truly captivating is not just the technology he created, but the mindset behind it: what drives someone to spend years decoding the hidden structure of markets when simpler paths already exist?
“In trading and investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.”
Positional Trader
Rohit Srivastava
The Complete Analyst
In a market crowded with traders following borrowed theories and recycled indicators, Rohit Srivastava chose a far more difficult path—questioning the very foundations of conventional technical analysis. What began as a teenage challenge to predict stock prices evolved into a lifelong obsession with understanding crowd psychology, market cycles, and the hidden forces driving price behaviour. From surviving the Harshad Mehta era to developing his own frameworks and platforms, Rohit built his reputation not by following established rules, but by constantly rethinking them. Yet the deeper fascination lies here: what happens when a trader stops seeing markets as charts and starts seeing them as reflections of collective human behaviour?
“The market’s movements are not the result of chance or random events, but follow a definite law that can be interpreted in terms of a repetitive pattern of waves that reflect the basic harmony found in nature and human activity.”
Proprietary Trader
Aditya Pachwaria
Mr. Persistent
Aditya Pachwaria’s presence in the trading world inspires both admiration and debate—a sign, perhaps, that he has operated at levels few truly understand. Known as one of India’s leading proprietary traders, he built his reputation through sharp insights into open interest, market structure, and aggressive positioning. But what makes his story unforgettable is not merely the scale of his success—it is his survival through devastating drawdowns that many believed would end his career. While critics questioned his relevance, Aditya quietly endured, evolved, and rebuilt himself through one of the harshest phases a trader can face. Behind the numbers lies a deeper story of conviction, family sacrifice, and resilience. And perhaps that is the real question his journey raises: what does it take for a trader to return after the markets have taken almost everything away?
The elements of good trading are: (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.”
Proprietary Trader
Abhishek Kadam
Mastering Mindful Trading
Abhishek Kadam represents the new face of Indian trading—young, deeply analytical, spiritually grounded, and unafraid to build big from humble beginnings. From helping at his family’s flower shop in Kalyan to creating a 20-member quantitative trading team from scratch before the age of 26, his journey feels almost improbable. While many traders chase shortcuts and “Holy Grails,” Abhishek immersed himself in relentless research, backtesting thousands of strategies while building a culture rooted in discipline, meditation, fitness, and continuous learning. Yet what makes his story truly fascinating is not just the speed of his rise, but the mindset behind it: how does someone so young combine ambition, inner calm, and systematic thinking in a profession designed to amplify chaos and ego?
“Meditation, more than anything in my life, was the biggest ingredient of whatever success I’ve had.”
Proprietary Trader
Deepak Sethia
The Gut Trader
Deepak Sethia’s story challenges almost every stereotype associated with professional trading. In an industry dominated by IIT graduates, complex algorithms, and screens overflowing with charts, he rose to become the top global trader at Futures First for seventeen years—with nothing more than a commerce degree and an instinctive understanding of markets. Remarkably, Deepak trades without using charts at all, relying instead on “gut feel”—a refined ability to read order flow, global events, and market psychology developed over decades of experience. From nearly being dismissed in his early years to mastering global markets, his journey is both unconventional and extraordinary. But perhaps the most intriguing question is this: can intuition, sharpened through relentless experience, sometimes outperform the very systems designed to replace it?
“You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly.”
Proprietary Trader
Samir Doshi
From Backroom to Boardroom
Samir Doshi’s journey mirrors the evolution of India’s modern trading industry itself—from the birth of the NSE to the rise of sophisticated proprietary trading desks. Starting with no powerful connections and little formal preparation, he found himself, at just 21, handling institutional trades during one of the most transformative phases in Indian market history. What followed was not merely a successful trading career, but the rise of a leader admired by some of the country’s finest prop traders. From mastering arbitrage to building and leading massive trading teams, Samir combined sharp market instincts with exceptional mentorship and leadership. Yet perhaps the most compelling part of his story is this: what allows certain traders not only to survive the markets, but to build entire ecosystems of talent and excellence around them?
“The secret to being successful from a trading perspective is to have an indefatigable and an undying and unquenchable thirst for information and knowledge.”
Proprietary Trader
Vivek Bajaj
Profiting from Inefficiencies
Vivek Bajaj’s journey is far more than the story of a successful trader—it is the story of someone who recognised the future of Indian financial markets long before most others did. From manually exploiting derivatives mispricing with Excel spreadsheets in the early 2000s to building one of India’s largest trading and financial education ecosystems, his evolution reflects vision, adaptability, and relentless execution. Yet beneath the entrepreneur, educator, and market expert lies a trader shaped by uncertainty, loss, and constant reinvention. What makes his story truly compelling is not the scale of his success, but the philosophy behind it: why does a man who built an empire around trading believe that understanding losses matters more than celebrating profits?
“Great financial success comes from starting businesses with concrete products in the real world, building jobs, creating value, and helping people.”
Scalper
Sivakumar Jayachandran
Fast and Fearless
Sivakumar Jayachandran’s rise in the trading world feels almost cinematic—a man who moved from hotel management to entrepreneurship, and eventually into the high-pressure world of options scalping, where decisions are made in seconds and mistakes are punished instantly. What first appeared as casual conversations at a Goa traders’ event quickly revealed a mind capable of decoding markets with extraordinary speed and clarity. After devastating early losses, Siva rebuilt himself by abandoning emotional trading and obsessing over process, precision, and discipline. Today, with trades often lasting less than two minutes, he operates in a realm few can mentally survive for long. But perhaps the real intrigue lies here: what kind of mindset allows someone to repeatedly step into chaos, make split-second decisions, and remain calm while fortunes change in moments?
“The market is a dynamic, living entity. You need to be equally dynamic in your approach—alert, energetic, and ready to adapt at every moment.”
What you'll learn
Transform Your Trading From The Inside Out
Every chapter delivers actionable insights you can apply to your trading immediately — not abstract theory, but battle-tested wisdom from traders who’ve lived it.
🧠
How Professionals Think
Understand the cognitive frameworks that separate consistently profitable traders from the 90% who lose. Learn to think in probabilities, not predictions.
😨
Managing Fear & Greed
Discover the exact techniques elite traders use to neutralize the two most destructive emotions in trading — and turn them into decision-making allies.
🎯
Building Discipline
Learn the daily habits, routines, and mental rituals that transform impulsive traders into disciplined operators who follow their system without exception.
💔
Handling Losses
Every trader loses. The difference is how they respond. Learn the specific recovery frameworks that prevent one bad trade from becoming a catastrophic spiral.
🔄
Creating Consistency
Consistency isn’t about winning every trade — it’s about executing the right process every time. Learn how to build a trading system that compounds results over years.
📐
Position Sizing Mastery
The most overlooked skill in trading. Learn the exact position sizing frameworks that protect capital while maximizing upside in every market condition.
🛡️
Risk Management Systems
Go beyond basic stop-losses. Discover layered risk management approaches that institutional-level traders use to survive any market environment.
🧘
Trading Psychology
Understand the psychological patterns that sabotage traders — confirmation bias, recency bias, loss aversion — and the mental models that overcome them.
💪
Mental Resilience
Markets will test you. Drawdowns will challenge your conviction. Learn how veteran traders build the mental fortitude to persist through the darkest periods.
⏳
Long-Term Survival
The ultimate measure of trading success isn’t one great year — it’s decades of consistent performance. Learn the principles that keep traders alive for the long haul.
"This book is not about getting rich quickly. It is about becoming the kind of trader who survives long enough to succeed — the kind who masters their own psychology before attempting to master the markets."
Wisdom from the trading floor
Featured Insights
Strategy is only part of success. The rest is the war you wage against yourself every single trading day.
— From The Little Book of Giant Traders
Survival comes before profits. The trader who protects capital today lives to compound it tomorrow.
— From The Little Book of Giant Traders
Markets test temperament more than intelligence. The smartest analyst in the room often makes the worst trader.
— From The Little Book of Giant Traders
Great traders don’t compete against the market. They compete against themselves — and that is the hardest battle of all.
— From The Little Book of Giant Traders
The edge isn’t in the chart. It’s in the mind reading the chart. Master that, and the profits follow.
— From The Little Book of Giant Traders
Reader reviews
What Readers Are Saying
Thousands of traders and investors have discovered the transformative power of these interviews.
OUR PROMISE TO YOU
The Knowledge That Pays For Itself
Every principle in this book comes from traders who’ve risked real money and won consistently over decades. A single insight from any one of these 18 traders — applied to your own trading — can save you years of trial and error and thousands in avoidable losses. This isn’t a cost. It’s an investment in the most important trading tool you’ll ever develop: your mind.
What you're getting
The Value Inside
18 In-Depth Trader Interviews (400+ Pages)
Priceless
Real Psychology & Mindset Frameworks
Priceless
Risk Management Systems from Veterans
Priceless
Emotional Control & Discipline Techniques
Priceless
Loss Recovery & Drawdown Management
Priceless
Decades of Compressed Market Wisdom
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Your Investment Today
Just The Price of a Book
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this book suitable for beginners?
Absolutely. In fact, beginners may benefit the most. The book doesn’t assume technical knowledge — it focuses on the psychological principles that determine success or failure in trading. Whether you’re just starting or have years of experience, the lessons on mindset, discipline, and emotional control are universally applicable. Many readers have said they wish they’d read this book before placing their very first trade.
Does this book teach specific trading strategies?
While each trader discusses their approach — options, swing trading, scalping, positional trading, etc. — this book is deliberately focused on the psychology behind the strategy rather than specific setups. You’ll understand how traders think about entries, exits, and risk management from a mental framework perspective. The goal is to give you the psychological infrastructure to execute any strategy effectively.
Is this book focused primarily on psychology?
Yes — and that’s by design. After interviewing 18 of India’s most successful traders, the overwhelming pattern that emerged was this: psychology, discipline, and risk management matter far more than any indicator or chart pattern. The book covers mindset, emotional control, loss management, adaptability, and the daily mental habits that separate consistent winners from the 90% who fail.
Are the interviews with real traders?
Yes — and that’s by design. After interviewing 18 of India’s most successful traders, the overwhelming pattern that emerged was this: psychology, discipline, and risk management matter far more than any indicator or chart pattern. The book covers mindset, emotional control, loss management, adaptability, and the daily mental habits that separate consistent winners from the 90% who fail.
Can long-term investors benefit from this book?
Yes — and that’s by design. After interviewing 18 of India’s most successful traders, the overwhelming pattern that emerged was this: psychology, discipline, and risk management matter far more than any indicator or chart pattern. The book covers mindset, emotional control, loss management, adaptability, and the daily mental habits that separate consistent winners from the 90% who fail.
Is it available in paperback and Kindle?
Yes — and that’s by design. After interviewing 18 of India’s most successful traders, the overwhelming pattern that emerged was this: psychology, discipline, and risk management matter far more than any indicator or chart pattern. The book covers mindset, emotional control, loss management, adaptability, and the daily mental habits that separate consistent winners from the 90% who fail.
The Market Changes. Human Nature Doesn't.
Learn the timeless principles followed by traders who survived, evolved, and succeeded. Discover why mastering yourself is the ultimate market edge — told through the unforgettable stories of 18 traders who proved it.