"Stressed traders buckle under weight of volatile markets" http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/05/2235805.htm "Increased volatility grips stock markets, big investment banks tot up losses from a credit market seizure and jobs are slashed - being a trader has seldom been more stressful. Since a stock market bull run came to a grinding halt last year and as the crisis has magnified by the week, occupational psychologists who help stressed-out traders and bankers now fear a higher cost than mere write-downs: suicide. ... Tales of traders throwing themselves out of windows on Wall Street in the wake of 1929 were essentially myths, as noted by John Kenneth Galbraith in his 1955 account of the crash. But in finance in recent years, some deaths have been notable. Three employees at Societe Generale in Paris have committed suicide in as many years, prompting unions to raise concerns over the stressful environment at the bank. The most recent was last June, when an equity derivatives trader in his thirties threw himself off a highway bridge near the bank's head office. ... In September last year, Citi launched a Canary Wharf health care centre, with a staff of 20 including a nurse, GP, dentist, masseur, chiropodist, chiropractor and occupational health adviser who arranges social, medical and psychological treatments."
"City trader's suicide leap from Hilton" http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...+trader's+suicide+leap+from+Hilton/article.do "A City trader who jumped to his death from the 19th floor of the Park Lane Hilton was driven to suicide by the pressures of work, an inquest heard. Credit Suisse employee Darren Liddle, 26, spent the night bingeing on cocaine and also drank alcohol from the hotel's minibar before falling 200 feet while his girlfriend looked on. "
Testosterone levels predict City tradersâ profitability http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/press/dpp/2008041701 "Professor Joe Herbert, Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair, said: "Market traders, like some other occupations (such as air traffic controllers), work under extreme pressure and the consequences of the rapid decisions they have to make can have profound consequences for them, and for the market as a whole. Our work suggests that these decisions may be biased by emotional and hormonal factors that have not so far been considered in any detail." "Dr. John Coates, lead author, said, "Rising levels of testosterone and cortisol prepare traders for taking risk. However, if testosterone reaches physiological limits, as it might during a market bubble, it can turn risk-taking into a form of addiction, while extreme cortisol during a crash can make traders shun risk altogether.""
I will parse your Q's below; I numbered them for reference. As a starting point, there are many many successful methods or approaches to making money in markets. Also these Q's return to the OP's theme that he is backing up with his additional examples. 0. What do you think are the symptoms of an irreversibly "damaged" mind of a CW trader? I believe that a trader continues to acquire knowledge and skills both as a consequence of experience. So making an assessment logically starts with examining the status if things. Look at the business plan. Examine the trading plan. The standard to compare with, in my opinion, is how close to what the market is offering is that being extracted regardless of the successful method being used. This result allows a person, even if he is not making money to recognize a broad array of considerations with respect to the mind. I will go through several parts. There may not be a business plan nor trading plan. These may not be up to date. They may be ill conceived and not workable. In any event, if there is bad news with respect to these things, then a lot of damage is being done continually and this process is shutting down the mind's potential for reversing the current process. If the person is not handling the three shaded areas above, then a process is going on in the mind which is not differentiating the mind using the competitive neuroplasticity to insert threads of solutions to help cure the missed performance aspects. This means that what is going on in the mind is creating crosswiring as the ongoing trading bounces around in the mind making unintentional connections which result in sensory emotions as the market is continuing to be observed. Here is a cross wiring example. Go to a dialog bighog has on his example of selling purses with an OP that is dealing with P and V. Sensory emotions that cheese says n00bs have are all negative and these cause crosswiring. He suggests adopting four emotions instead (peace, serenity, etc.) and later he says they are not used by expert pros who have emotions of race car drivers. In a nut shell, any emotions that are other than confidence building oriented contribute to cross wiring. As time passes and the first recourse is to crosswiring; it becomes evident that the person is headed for the permanent exit tradingwise. Oddtrader, as OP is provifing rather extreme examples and his mind is accumulating this stuff as "knowledge". You can also look at his list of search topics; the list is not oriented to improving knowledge, skills and B plans and T plans. 1. How can a trader recognize, that his mind is "damaged"? 2. I guess the appearance of the doubts (at the method) alone wouldn't suffice for such a diagnosis? 3. At what point are the pieces from prior experiences can not be overwritten any more? 4. What can be done in such cases? 5. Can a trader willfully do something to repair his mind?
blah blah big word here big word there hear a big there a big everywhere a big word blah blah blah look at me my mind can control my mouth to manipulate little weak willed lost sheep who will drink my cool aid and exalt me above all other losers who can not really trade for a living fact is jack can not will not EVER state a simple trade scenario wow puzzled am i of simple words and thoughts same as a mud brick but with a instinctive ability to spot a fraud when i smell one or two whoooo hoo did i mention blah blah blah
Cheer up Mark... Everything will be alright... Really it will. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DKfVvcRWnIo&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DKfVvcRWnIo&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
continued...... 2. I guess the appearance of the doubts (at the method) alone wouldn't suffice for such a diagnosis? The method, any method for that matter, is a collection of differentiated threads in areas of the mind. Or it is, when failing, something that may build up as differentiation for a while (look at zdawg before and after his going from paper to live trading. In a week he went though 25% of his capital using his paper trading rule set) and then go to a crosswired state as a consequence of adding a lot of neurons to the locations of the mind that were previously differentiated. Doubts are the mind processing inputs and examining, consciously, that something is apparently amiss. The mind works on this to put in a fix as an activity. Often questions are raised and, then, by a process some kind of progress is made. If doubts are sufficient, the person goes into a state of dealing with the doubts and resolving them. This is how a person can back pedal out of knowledge and non functional skills that need to be repaired. More often, the exisitng first recourse is built around so that a different first recourse gets "drilled" and used successfully. Recently, the 18th comment made (the comment had been repeated in varoious ways to make a point in learning) by one person to another was reposted in a feedback thread by a third person who used the post to make an unrelated comment about learning. Here you see an observer "gets it" that a doubtful situation is being resolved by continueing to support the learning required to get a new first recouse built in a mind. Thus doubts are a positive recognition that the mind is there and working and needs to learn more to improve the area under construction. This is all good news. Once learning how to learn enters the picture as a consideration, then the person has moved to a higher plateau in his seeking. Good news. 3. At what point are the pieces from prior experiences can not be overwritten any more? Overwriting isn't on the table. What is on the table is inputs competing for limited space. We want to wedge in a new thread. We want to be able to connect to it instead of where connections were made before. There are more than a billion neurons in this process. In the mind they are microscopic. In other places, the output gizmo of the neuron can be 5 feet long. New neurons are always climbing up flagpoles to get to places where needed. They fit in and help build strands of guys that can fire together. As new paths get installed and used more and more they get stronger and braided and have shortcuts within them. The older ones are not used as a consequence. They are not firing together and not getting biochemically encouraged. In fact they may be getting a dose of LTD from the biochemical management center of the brain. They are getting squeezed into lesser areas as the good guys become the first recourse. At many times in life a general overhauling can be taking place to make way for the future. Language learning gets one early on. At the end of teenage, the mellowing happens simply because most of the unused outputs of neurons are summarily clipped off and disposed of. Behavior changes then for the better, speaking as a maturing of character point of view. Now you can se why we introduce a given idea and use it for a month or two daily and over and over within the day. A night the inputs that were largely unconscious (10,000 to 20,000,000 million a sensory pulse) are sorted to the threads and braiding occurs to build up what happened consciously. Then a person gets aha's and AHA's as he performs what he thought he knew and NOW REALLY KNOWS (through mind building while asleep and not getting external stimulus.) 4. What can be done in such cases? The mind gets the job done. If it is over and the person is headed for the exit; the mind coaches him on the way out. If the person has leaned to learn and he is going about it purposefully and rationally, then he grows and matures. the mind is able to bring together many many areas in complementary areas. Data sets can become very complete and suffucuent. MADA rep rates get to be very effective and there is no more "reaction" but, as sequences, become organized (unconsciously at first) a smoothing of critical thiking occurs and it feel anticipatory and automatic and correct. Read mark brown to see the alternative. He uses ATS's to replace his mind or to do "workarounds" on his crosswiring and inability to process in read time. Here is a T&S that lasted 21 seconds. 7 points up and about 5+ back down; three reversals at beginning, middle and end. It was known that it was going to happen as the anotations tell. Being able to snagit is another facet of how well the mind works. 5. Can a trader willfully do something to repair his mind? learning how the mind works leads to learning how to learn. At this point it is a whole different world. People do sit down and do business plans. They make trading plans. They decide to look at what the market offers. Once it is evident that what the market offers may be taken to be used to solve the problems that one is ware of, the pieces all begin to fall together. what is so wonderful about everything in the world today is that anyone anywhere can decide to be be very helpful with others of like mind. Now I want to spend some time getting the seed on the table. It will be a blast and in the Iterative Refinement thread.
Take a look at the T&S and see three trades. Also note that a snagit was pulled (at some time or other) to illustrate the three trades as the news broke. This simple trade scenario is called: trading the news. See bottom right for the schedule of news.