A few months ago, when Preet Bharara was fired by Trump and then asked if watching BILLIONS was now weird, he responded "Well, for some people, it's always been weird". As they say, "I feel ya', man". It's a statement I totally get! To watch Maggie Siff play Wendy catapults me…
Trading is hard. This far-flung, never-ending electronic poker game serves up a mental challenge unlike any other. Anything can happen at any time. It looks like a numbers game but it's really a people game. The data are numbers but the information is in the relationships between, and the implications…
“I got them all wrong” exclaimed one private equity portfolio manager. “Ha! Right!” said another Chief Investment Officer when I suggested that the pattern recognition skills embedded in succeeding with the Bloomberg Tradebook Trader Brain Exercise (TBX > GO) resembled private equity decisions. With almost ten thousand players, this exercise/game illustrates an underlying…
A trader I coach predicted this as the best positioning for Brexit : Short the pound, short the S&Ps, long gold and short oil. This is John B. - a guy with 20+ years of very successful experience and a recent history of working on separating instinct from impulse through…
UPDATE June 20, 2016: I am SO glad the Cavs won! Thrilled. Elated. Vindicated. Ecstatic. Relieved. Joyous. Shocked... not necessarily in that order. Maybe someday I will get to interview LeBron about the cycle of emotions he experienced and used to create this incredible historic victory! UPDATE June 17, 2016:…
A few weeks ago, I attended the annual meeting of The Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS) - a seemingly unlikely place to figure out how to resolve a trading mistake! Those who follow me know I am not only a closet academic but that many of the advanced trading psychology…
This morning I was talking to a coaching client and we jointly realized that to characterize one of the most powerful trading emotions as FOMO actually misses the most important point. FOMO - or fear of missing out - connotates the fear of missing an event which really isn't the…
We've all asked this question. Should I stay at the party a bit longer? Should I wait and see if the Cleveland Browns might possibly (by some miracle) pull this game out? (NO!) But I bet it never occurred to you that this is really the central question of trading.…
In the Annual Review of Psychology 2015, Lerner of Harvard points out that from 1970 to 1995 there were virtually NO scientific papers on the subject of emotions and judgment and decision making (JDM). From 1995-2000 there were less than 50 a year and then it began to climb. The…
John Netto, a very successful trader, is currently finishing his book The Global Macro Edge wherein he takes on what he sees as the myths of Wall St. One of the chapters will be titled "Emotions are your Biggest Ally". How, when it seems emotions are usually our biggest enemy,…
