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Emotional Trading

Emotional Trading

Most people crave excitement and entertainment. Singers, actors, and professional athletes command much higher incomes than such mundane workmen as physicians, pilots, or college professors. People love to have their nerves tickled—they buy lot- tery tickets, fly to LasVegas, and slow down to gawk at road accidents.
Emotional trading can be very addictive. Even those who drop money in the mar- kets receive a fantastic entertainment value.
The market is a spectator sport and a participant sport rolled into one. Imagine going to a major-league ball game in which you are not confined to the bleachers. Pay a few hundred dollars and be allowed to run onto the field and join the game. If you hit the ball right, you’ll get paid like a professional.
You would probably think twice before running onto the field the first few times. This cautious attitude is responsible for the well-known “beginner’s luck.” Once a beginner hits the ball right a few times and collects his pay, he is likely to get the idea that he is as good as the pros or even better and could make a good living from the game. Greedy amateurs start running onto the field too often, even when there are no good playing opportunities. Before they know what hit them, a short string of losses destroys their accounts.
The market is among the most entertaining places on the face of the Earth, but emotional decisions are lethal. If you ever go to a racetrack, turn around, and watch the humans instead of horses. Gamblers stomp their feet, jump up and down, and yell at horses and jockeys.Thousands of people act out their emotions.Winners em- brace, and losers tear up their tickets in disgust.The joy, the pain, and the intensity of wishful thinking are caricatures of what happens in the markets. A cool handicapper.


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