1 The Story
The prop-desk teacher
Mike Bellafiore co-founded SMB Capital, a New York proprietary trading firm, with Steven Spencer, and became one of the most recognised voices in trader development.1
His books One Good Trade (2010) and The PlayBook (2013) take readers inside a prop desk — showing how professional traders think, review their work, and improve.1
2 The Big Idea
Build your own playbook of A+ setups
Find the few trades that genuinely fit you, and master them through deliberate practice.
Bellafiore's central tool is the 'playbook': a personal, written catalogue of the specific setups a trader has studied, traded, and proven work for them. The edge isn't a secret pattern — it's relentless review, deliberate practice, and concentrating on your highest-conviction trades.1
3 The Method
The SMB approach
Build a playbook
Write up each setup you trade — the context, trigger, risk, and why it works — and grow a library of your best.
Trade your A+ setups
Concentrate size and focus on the few trades that truly fit your strengths.
Deliberate practice
Review every trade in detail; treat improvement as a craft, like an athlete studying film.
Process over P&L
Judge yourself on whether you traded well, not on a single day's profit.
4 Try It Today
Test the idea for yourself
A no-risk exercise
Write up one trade you understand well as a 'playbook' page: the setup, the exact trigger, where you're wrong (the stop), the target, and why it works. Do this for your best ideas and you're building exactly what Bellafiore trains professional traders to build.
5 The Books & Their Big Ideas
What they wrote — and what to take from it
6 Watch & Read
Go deeper
- STRATEGYThe Strategy Playbooks — our own version of the idea.
- CONCEPTRisk & Position Sizing
- CONCEPTOrder Flow & Tape Reading
- BOOKThe PlayBook & One Good Trade
§ Sources
- Mike Bellafiore, The PlayBook (2013) & One Good Trade (2010) — SMB Capital.