“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 hunger for new ways to improve […]
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: This time I stayed until 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. It’s the exit that makes the […]
Back in the ‘90s in Chicago when I just beginning to trade my mentor would say: “I’ve seen this movie before.” Mistaking the market for a math problem, I really didn’t get what he meant – until indeed I too felt a click of recognition as I watched price action unfold. Experience delivers an ability […]
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 […]
Back in 2007, Cal-Tech ran what is turning out to be a revolutionary study on how the brain predicts price moves. The authors found that predicting other people is the key skill behind correctly predicting price moves. In some circles, this skill is called mentalizing but until recently, skill development programs for this ability were […]
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 […]
Two separate studies interviewing close to 200 successful portfolio managers and traders confirm what Jason Voss and Ravhee Mehta have reported in their books The Intuitive Investor and The Emotionally Intelligent Investor. Being able to read the feelings of other market participants, a form of empathy, and being able to parse one’s one feelings for […]
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 […]
Fast Company recently wrote that EI or emotional intelligence is beginning to be considered along SAT scores in college admittance – at Yale no less! Likewise, the New York Times reported on how emotional awareness tactics are helping discouraged job seekers find work.
What’s up with this? Why is emotion – that feared and denigrated element […]