Short thread on emotions in trading

A common meme is that the best traders are the least emotional. I’m calling BS on this.

I’ve analysed the Psychological make-up of many brilliant traders over many years using psychometrics. And whilst this isn’t scientific research.

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I’ve not found a correlation between people’s emotional intensity & their performance. Some of the very best traders I come across are highly emotional.

Risk is felt, it’s not something that can be quantified despite the failed attempts of many. 2/9

Of course allowing your emotions to control your trading is unhelpful, but some of the ‘emotional’ types have learned to master this and have become incredibly adept at it.

The fact that they don’t suppress their emotions aids this process.

They use their emotions as

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clues and triggers on their internal radar. It’s a skill which great traders learn to do.

Feeling their emotions & being aware of them enables them to identify opportunities & threats with great haste, giving them an edge over ‘less emotional’ types who are not able to

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recognise some signals.

By contracts the less emotional types can tend to be overconfident & don’t always see (because they don’t feel) the degree of risk or threat in situations.

I am not saying emotional or unemotional is superior. Both types can and do succeed.

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