Trader Psychological Test: The Left Brain vs Right Brain

Which way do you see the dancer moving?

  • Counterclockwise (left brain dominant)

    Votes: 13 23.6%
  • Clockwise (right brain dominant)

    Votes: 42 76.4%

  • Total voters
    55
Quote from gettinglucky:

Yer fergot elle ebout ze theerd brayne... zat iz... ze gut brayne. Zere iz eh whoul komblex nervoze shystem zere.

I agree about the gut brain, try doing some martial arts without entirely dropping the left AND the right brain and you will not, I repeat, not... be able to prevail when you really need to...

I have a very interesting situation with regard to the brain, I babysit a 59 yo woman with dementia... she laughs at one-liners, she knows when to cross the street without looking, we can play fight and she will move out of the way of a punch before I start it... she's only got her gut brain and she does pretty well with it...
 
Quote from Eight:

I agree about the gut brain, try doing some martial arts without entirely dropping the left AND the right brain and you will not, I repeat, not... be able to prevail when you really need to...

I have a very interesting situation with regard to the brain, I babysit a 59 yo woman with dementia... she laughs at one-liners, she knows when to cross the street without looking, we can play fight and she will move out of the way of a punch before I start it... she's only got her gut brain and she does pretty well with it...

fighting an old woman with dementia is not martial art.

Bruce Shortie Lee Out :cool:
 
Quote from Eight:

first time I looked she was going ccw, second time cw... some test..
It means that you use both side of brain to do the test, but how about your opinion to the left and right of brain?
 
I'm interested in knowing the psychological makeup of trader. Or at the very least the ones that are on Elitetrader...

Which side do you think is more useful to trading? And Why?

Buzzed pointed out good technique for spinning her either way. I guess the value of the test comes from what our brains do on initial viewing. My immediate result was CCW (Left Brained), but I'm also left handed which suggests more of a Right Brain orientation. By profession I'm an engineer (Left Brained in details / Right Brained in concepts).

The intuitive approach to trading is a Right Brained approach. Understanding markets based on deep level observation of things like price action and charts. The grind it out mindset is clearly a Left Brained approach. Its about staying alive and keeping yourself from serious harm.

We really need both, but in terms of value I have to go with Right Brain. I believe that being successful requires more than just rules and methods. By themselves they reduce trading to little more than game theory. Sooner or later we learn left brained survival skills (or we stop). Having an ability to sense and act in concert with the market is the most valuable skill. It cannot be coded into rules.

Disclaimer: I'm not actively trading right now - I've been away from markets over 10 years. When I traded it was on a full time basis about 4 - 6 months / year. I don't have that kind of luxury any more and need an approach which is compatible with a more traditional "day job". The goal (of course) will be to eventually quit my day job and go full time.
 
Counterclockwise (left brain dominant) 10 38.46%
Clockwise (right brain dominant) 16 61.54%
Total: 26 votes 100%

Nice. We're getting close to the Fibonacci 62/38 ratio.
 
A lot of folks don't seem to speak highly of fib's these days. I looked at many years of EOD market data across multiple instruments / markets and found them to be useful in identifying potential S/R targets which is useful in estimating risk / reward for potential positions.

BR/
FMR
 
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