Psychopaths could be best financial traders?

In a study of investors' behavior 41 people with normal IQs were asked to play a simple investment game. Fifteen of the group had suffered lesions on the areas of the brain that affect emotions.

The result was those with brain damage outperformed those without.

The scientists found emotions led some of the group to avoid risks even when the potential benefits far outweighed the losses, a phenomenon known as myopic loss aversion.

One of the researchers, Antione Bechara, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Iowa, said the best stock market investors might plausibly be called "functional psychopaths."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050919/od_nm/traders_dc;_ylt=AiHXpi55XPfdlwThAUz29L8Z.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-

I knew it. You HAVE to be a soulless dick to be playing with money and not care about the consequences to real people.

Beware the office psychopath
OFFICE psychopaths are rampant in Australia, we have been told. They lie and cheat their way to the top, leaving a trail of broken hearts and shattered expectations - then destroy those who helped them get there.

Dr John Clarke, lecturer at the Continuing Education Centre at the University of Sydney and the author of two books on psychopaths, says these people are ruthless and parasitic.

"They do what they want without the slightest guilt or regret. Most are not in jail but working in an office."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/theladder/beware-the-office-psychopath/2005/08/26/1124563022416.html?oneclick=true


Odds are you've run across one of these characters in your career. They're glib, charming, manipulative, deceitful, ruthless -- and very, very destructive. And there may be lots of them in America's corner offices.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html

I thought it was just a gambling addiction, an illness. The stock market is one big gamble, and any attempts to even the odds are considered illegal, so the government is pretty much an enabler for addictive behaviour. Why in hell would anyone entrust his money to people who should be attending meetings of Gamblers Anonymous?

on the other hand "myopic risk aversion" probably makes us less likely to smoke, drive like idiots or vote republican.

game!"

but they all look a bit nutty to me. You would have to have a very unique personality to deal with that level of greed and stress all day.

And boy, I just stereotyped like half of NYC. Maybe that is not a good thing. I try not to do that.

Financial traders out there... defend yourselves!

At the very least I have to say that they must burn out young.

Antione Bechara is an idiot and should not be allowed to publish any scientific papers in the future.

1. Risk taking could be a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on a lot of factors. People who are prewired to take risks when investing are not likely to become successful stock market investors in the long run.

2. There is a logical fallacy here. i.e., "If X then Y" doesn't imply "If Y then X". Just because lack of emotions (may) help with investing, it doesn't follow that people who are good at investing lack emotions.

The person quoted is either incredibly stupid or thinks that people who read the news are.

Must not gaze into mirror...

Of course!.:think:

Here's a link to the Reuters article: <http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=9693618&src=rss/oddlyEnoughNews>