Brain function is easily measured today.
A great deal of past research neglected to do this (See Traderzones old standbys).
As a trader matures he goes from sympathetic to parasympathetic.
If nitro and thunderdog were traders and trading, what they describe doing as trading is called sympathetic. Most exit/exit edge based trading is sympathetic as it is described in the full range of publications on trading.
A lot of money is paid to people who "fix" traders and fix corporations financial operations. They are focused on making the downside of sympathetic as small as possible.
The way Steenbarger put in the fix for Greenspoon describes and well points out the tough situation of the sympathetic model that both of them describe as OODA. OODA is the famous sympathetic oriented feeback system for being a fighter pilot.
The Bohr Effect describes what OODA's stress orientation does to the supply system of the mind.
Whether a person is getting wiped out by a black swan or just going along in the inductively oriented period prior to a wipe out, really isn't a comparison of two operating conditions in terms of the failure of the mind to do either "nurture" or "nature".
Some of the most fun intraday moments regarding "mental downsides" of OODA when the Bohr Effect is peaking is the late afternoon cascading when IB's are closing accounts of people experiencing "blowout".
An good recent (17FEB09 bar 70 and 71) ATS example is the "anticipation" via leading indicator signals where an MACD Bsub2 is followed by an Asub1 concurrent with an alpha on the ST5 and a beta on the ST14 (this is known as a Z1 override (Hershey Hinge)). The reversal occurs to "catch" each portion of the cascade (long for about 70% of the ATR followed by a short for about 70% of ATR.
Parasympathetically , one kind of trader (the ATS trader in the example) is feeling very coherent (as in relaxed meditation), while sympathetically, the whole list of traders "blownout" were in a Bohr Effect state where their brains had 50% of the required oxygen to operate.
For any person to trade with the trading knowledge and knowledge of the sympathetic only as displayed by nitro and thunderdog is a common occurance.
for Steenbarger to not understand the limitations of the sympathetic mind is inexcusable. For Greenspoon to pay Steenbarger in order to average 10,000 a day annual with unlimited capital is wya out of the box as a survival technique.
What does it take for anyone to move from a probabilistic inductive modus of using their brains? In the least it would take connecting up to a analyzer of their coherence to determine when they should step back from trading as their brains shut down due to lack of oxygen.
Fortunately, this becomes an enforced occurance through IB's shutting down accounts as they zero out and this returns a sufficient level of oxygen to that person's brain so he can survive in the world as a non trader for the days ahead.
For nitro, he turned to employment doing computer software maintenance. There is less stress with programming things since there is no financial consequence of wrong programming.
Here is a display of a software package that monitors a fourrier series associated with a human continually generated waveform. It is blanked out so anyone can fill it in with the best conditions for trading. They are the opposite of the conditions engendered while trading in a CW modus.
How to go from sympathetic to parasympathetic is the opportunity facing all traders. It is a must to remedy the Bohr Effect associated with oxygen deprivation caused by any degree of stress.
