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 coaching.
We speak three times a […]
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 ideas I teach originate with […]
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 mental set-up causing one to […]
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 number of papers doubled from […]
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, could John think such a […]
Conventional wisdom still dictates that traders “control their emotions.” Yet somewhat conversely, the cutting edge of neuroeconomics research shows that “emotion determines how we perceive our world, organize our memory and make important decisions” (Brosh, 2013).
Ever wonder why you did the exact thing you planned not to? Ever marvel at how you said you would […]
In a world steeped in the mantra of “remain positive”, what is a trader or portfolio manager to do when frustration mounts? Winning in the game of markets is hard. It really is hard. Sometimes, or maybe even quite a lot of the time, that fact is going to lead to so-called “negative” feelings.
Even winners […]
Do you realize that almost no matter where you exit a trade, you are going to feel bad? If the trade is a winner, you wonder if you could have gotten more out of it or why you gave back part of what you had. It’s like a winner is ironically a no-win situation. On […]
It’s unfortunately still the conventional wisdom that the best trading occurs from so-called purely rational (read: statistical) and non-emotional analysis. Alas, it’s just not true. In fact, it isn’t even possible for a human being to make a risk-decision devoid of feelings and the most-forward thinking research says it isn’t possible to be rational WITHOUT […]
In technical terms, the researchers call this projected emotion, “anticipatory affect”. In simple terms, the results of this meta-analysis of the brain’s reaction to probabilities in risk goes like this:
1. A trader or PM takes in information about the expected mean, variance or skewness of a trade.
2. The PM or trader’s brain responds with an […]