Writings by ReThink
Written by Denise Shull
Harnessing Emotions (PDF)
Modern Trader 2017
For years traders thought the key to success was eliminating emotion from
trading; that is as simple as eliminating oxygen. Traders can’t separate out emotions, they need to harness them.
Shooting Yourself Full of Hormones Won't Make You a Better Trader (PDF)
Absolute Return Magazine, 2014
Your emotions don’t need to be fixed. Plato erred. Reason and emotion are not opposites. Neither is the mind separate from the body. Neuroeconomics is revealing that perception and judgment emerge like a symphony from an electrochemical orchestra …
The Art of Algorithmic War (PDF)
The ReThink Group, Inc. 2013
In this market age of dark pools, contorted orders and ‘self’-learning machines, the battle not only for alpha but also for simple survival looks more like war than ever before. What can brain science teach Wall Street about both types of knowledge? Do we really know our…
The Market Mind Games Column
Psychology Today 2012-2013
This column includes 15+ original articles by Denise, including: “How Do Our Minds Really Work?”, “The Real Psychology of Stock Market Highs”, “The Trader’s Market Mind: Fear Happiness, Depression and Success” and many other topics still applicable today.
Why Stock Market Highs Beget More New Highs
Huff Post 2013
First, markets are a bit like psychics — they ‘talk’ about what is going to happen in the future. Prices historically have portended the situation 6 to 12 months from now. If you can remember back to before the financial crisis exploded, you’ll recall that the market…
Emotion + “Radical Neuroscience” = Alpha
All About Alpha 2008
If 485 respondents to a recent Watson Wyatt/Financial Times Survey should be believed, we face a protracted shortage of alpha. Despite slicing and dicing portable alpha, alternative beta, returns or holdings-based alpha, excess returns remain elusive…
Psychological Dynamics in a Madoff Made-Up World (PDF)
Hedgeworld, Opinion 2008
Amid the disgust over Ponzi’s latest appearance, courtesy of Bernard L. Madoff, tip-toes the sheepishly answered question of how the professionals got duped. The biggest bank in Spain, Nomura in Japan and BNP Paribas surely should have known better…
Freud’s Path to Profits (PDF)
Stocks, Futures and Options 2004
Every experienced trader knows that success requires developing a plausible strategy for entries and exits – first there’s the plan, and then there’s the actual trading with that plan. There’s no question that this part of the job draws on fairly intense intellectual analysis…
The Neurobiology of Freud’s Repetition Compulsion (PDF)
Annals of Modern Psychoanalysis 2003
This paper develops a hypothesis regarding how the processes of neurological development could underlie the enactment of Freud’s Repetition Compulsion. Drawing largely on Allan Schore’s work in infant neurodevelopment as it relates to the mother and…
Stay Connected
Keep up to date on ReThink’s latest news with periodic email updates.