Attributed, in whole, to Linda Raschke: http://www.moneyshow.com/trading/article/32/DAYTRADERS-14300/The-Mental-Aspects-of-Trading-(Part-1)
Right, and furthermore ,look who controlled the trading desk at Smith Barney before they employed some 'ivy league-rs' who got rid of them.......one of the guys did not get past 8th grade...!!!! none of them went to college ...and Smith Barney is where? A trader is a trader...pure and simple... NiN
Some sage here on ET once posted : " For every IQ point over 100, add 6 months of training time before you can make $$".
Who ran Long Term Capital Management? look what happened to it. I would be willing to bet behind every major blowup are the most educated in society. For some reason they have trouble accepting a loss. I mean how can someone so educated be wrong.
"The one defining characteristic of successful traders is their refusal to quit in the face of adversity"
Apparently you don't socialize with many doctors. Being "very educated, accomplished, revered where you work, and highly compensated"... tends to make one overly confident in one's abilities. That's usually a negative in the investment world. LTCM... All them PhDs were sooooo confident in their work, they greedily concluded, "The market couldn't POSSIBLY move 1% against their play, so 100:1 leverage is not too risky"... Talk about hubris...
Not to mention the fact that being very educated and accomplished in one field could have absolutely nothing to do with ones ability in the trading world.
Precisely....and why is it we never hear of outstanding performances from these quants....in fact it would be hard to find a 'recognized quant' that has put up an above average performance over time... But they sure know how to wreck an economy... NiN
Doctors don't recognize that. As a group, they ARE competent.. and often in more than one area... but investing usually ain't one of them.