There's a long list of famous suicides among professional traders,, from Jesse Livermore to more recently http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-13/another-trader-commits-suicide . I am interested in suicide among discretionary retail traders, who usually suffer the greatest psychological and financial distress and would be less likely to attract major news coverage. Does anyone have any articles or anecdotes to share about retail trader suicides? Hopefully with this out in the open we will be able to share awareness about the extreme dangers of discretionary trading and begin to see artificial intelligence as a positive and logical replacement to discretionary trading.
He killed himself (as well as the other people) due to extreme distress. Probably the most famous example of someone for whom day trading was a bad thing. GAT
I posted here an in-depth study about suicide rates many years back and I did the same in college as a research paper in a psychology class back in the 90s. Financial workers are in the top 10 of 100 professions I had listed back then and in current environment. Yet, during recessions and bear markets that last more than 2 years...financial workers move into the top 3 of 100 professions. The research included the why and further analysis of sub-groups within each of the top 10 professions that had the highest suicide rates. For example, veterinarians (animal doctors) have the highest rates within the medical/health services whereas nurses have the lowest rates within the medical/health services. Note: Overall, depending upon which recent study you read in psychology magazines or online...veterinarians (animal doctors) have the highest rates and if you dig deeper into the researches...you'll find some very interesting reasons about the why for each profession group. Now, lets take a closer look at the financial workers. I recently wrote about specific congress folks involved in the gun control laws and debates that heated up with several mass shootings within a one year time span that included Mark Barton (prop trader) mass shooting. Within the financial industry there are several sub-groups...financial managers have the highest rates within the financial industry while retail traders have the lowest rates within the financial industry. However, there's another sub-group within the financial industry that doesn't have enough research and I believe this sub-group should get more attention...that's the sub-group involving college students (undergrads and grad students) that plan on working within the financial industry...they too have a high rate of suicides among college students but are listed in the category of "students" and not listed in the category of financial workers. There's also another group that oddly or mysteriously wasn't listed in any studies or only listed in very few studies...that's the military. Now they're listed in the top 10 in some recent studies. The odd group in the top 10 were "real estate agents" and in some studies they were higher than financial workers depending upon the status of the economy. Getting back to Mark Barton...he had the most media coverage because his suicide was the end result of his mass shooting. In contrast, there were others in the industry that committed suicide without killing others and they had less coverage by the media. Don't misunderstand or get illusions...high suicide rates isn't a financial worker problem. The number one cause is economic crisis / financial crisis. For example, during financial crisis...stay at home moms suicide rates increases 14%. Another example, during financial crisis...actors and actresses suicide rates increases 17%. I became aware of stats on this stuff when I was in college as an undergrad that was dating a PhD student doing her research on these issues. She's now a psychiatrist that works closely with corporate america. She has very interesting views about mental illness and economics...their correlations outside of genetic issues.
You're dentist is most likely to commit suicide than any institutional trader, fund manager, prop trader or retail trader. Its a scary thought especially the next time you visit your dentist and you can look deep into their eyes while they're working on your mouth. They work extremely long hours, overly stress even though they put on the biggest smiles and then are not able to psychologically manage complaints from patients. Just as important, they have the highest level of any occupation involving perfectionism. Another important reason for dentists at/near the top of the suicide rates...they have the highest debt levels leaving college / entering their professional careers and they are 3rd on the list of less likely to seek help for mental illness. In contrast, financial workers are like 27th on the list of less likely to seek help for mental illness mainly due to the improvements in corporations of financial institutions working with psychologists to help improve the mental well being of their employees...the new "Billions" TV series has several scenes devoted to this particular issue by the psychiatrist that's works for Axe Capital as an in-house performance coach. In fact, the largest growing field in psychiatry is as consultants for the financial industry. Its the primary link to why their employees are more likely to seek help for mental illness, job stress, poor performances due to psychological reasons than other high suicide rate occupations.
I was in Atlanta at the Momentum office the day before he came in shooting. Killed the guy I was meeting with. But Barton had many issues other than trading.