Did you ever notice that most traders are highly intelligent?

0007 said:
In a place I where used to work we had a thing called "effective intelligence" which was used in personal assessments. Thus you could have academically a very well qualified and "intelligent" person who couldn't actually do the job (high stress / fast but controlled reactions / ability to have a plan but modify in the light of events - very similar to some types of trading in fact!). Yet other non-academic individuals (clever, bright but not necessarily top notch academically) were brilliant.

So it all depends on what you mean by intelligence. I had heard that the most successful London floor traders used to be ex-barrow boys: sharp and quick witted but probably not hindered by too many GCE's!

Anyway, there may be intelligent life on Earth but I will be leaving at some point. :)
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HR horse sh1t

be fast, be accurate. that's a precursor to being a good trader. understand you can be wrong. this is where i struggle.
 
Most traders are intelligant...
If you took a random sample of the population, i think you'd be astonished how many idiots there are out there - If your working in London or in a trading environment - Everyone is pretty down to earth and smart, so i guess you would assume that were natural but ultimately when you compare it to the lot who go on X-factor who seem to be retarded and make up 80% of the UK population, then its safe to assume trading is a smart hobbie.
 
gooseman said:
HR horse sh1t

be fast, be accurate. that's a precursor to being a good trader. understand you can be wrong. this is where i struggle.
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Your opinion of course, but we got the right people for the job - and the results showed it. [We sometimes let a no-hoper stay on beyond reasonability in order to validate our results].
 
GladiatorX said:
Most traders are intelligant...
If you took a random sample of the population, i think you'd be astonished how many idiots there are out there - If your working in London or in a trading environment - Everyone is pretty down to earth and smart, so i guess you would assume that were natural but ultimately when you compare it to the lot who go on X-factor who seem to be retarded and make up 80% of the UK population, then its safe to assume trading is a smart hobbie.
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50% of the population is of below-average intelligence. The other half get sent to Uni :LOL:
 
I'd consider intelligence to be the ability to understand complex things. To be highly intelligent you would therefore need to be able to understand either highly complex things, or understand complex things to a higher standard than most.

If you consider the market to be complex, and you can understand it, and what it does (and is likely to do) to a greater extent than others, then yes you probably are highly intelligent. But there are surely people who can trade successfully without that high level of understanding, and surely there are those with that high understanding who can't trade because of emotion, ego, difficulty with quick decision making etc. although those might make a good analyst. Ideally I think you would want someone to be highly intelligent (with respect to market movement) AND that someone to have discipline, a quick mind and a cool head.

But it is not clear that most traders are highly intelligent.
 
Shakone said:
I'd consider intelligence to be the ability to understand complex things. To be highly intelligent you would therefore need to be able to understand either highly complex things, or understand complex things to a higher standard than most.

If you consider the market to be complex, and you can understand it, and what it does (and is likely to do) to a greater extent than others, then yes you probably are highly intelligent. But there are surely people who can trade successfully without that high level of understanding, and surely there are those with that high understanding who can't trade because of emotion, ego, difficulty with quick decision making etc. although those might make a good analyst. Ideally I think you would want someone to be highly intelligent (with respect to market movement) AND that someone to have discipline, a quick mind and a cool head.

But it is not clear that most traders are highly intelligent.
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An analogy, probably a weak one, but...

A car engine designer may or may not also be a good mechanic.
Some designers may develop the knack for practical mechanics, or always have had it; others couldn't change a spark plug.
Some mechanics have a pretty good knowledge of car engines; others may only have a sketchy knowledge but know enough to get and keep a car going.
 
mrsoul said:
Did you ever notice that most traders are highly intelligent?
I think that the intellectual challenge of trading is a big reason why many traders start playing this game; I know that was my reason for starting (and, of course, the money too).
You can tell from how well most of the traders write on this forum, and on other forums, that they have alot going on upstairs.
You really are competing against some of the best minds in the world.
I don't know if intelligence will guarantee success in this game but it certainly helps.
I am wondering if anyone else has made the same observation.
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Christ ,we must be reading different stuff. Intelligence for trading is much over rated .Patience ,persistence ,and flexibility come way higher up the scale as far as I am concerned.

As for "best minds in the world" ..LOL ..I'll try to think up a reply when I've picked myself up off the floor and stopped giggling hysterically.
 
Hmmmm funny I was thinking about this on my way to work last week. I work in R&D for a global pharmaceutical co. and was reading New Scientist on the train (like a good little nerd :LOL:) when I turned a page and came across a full page ad by a (no need to name names:cool:) SB firm. In New Scientist?!? This got me to thinking about trading/intelligence etc.
To relay my story, in the final year of my PhD, I had a couple of friends who traded and thought 'well I'm smarter than them, and (smarter than) most other people, so why not give it a go, I'll make loads of money!'
It certainly appears that a full-page ad in New Scientist opens (/blows!) enough accounts to make it worth the SB's while - i.e. they attract lots of scientists and also that said scientists lose money (because SB's wouldn't make any unless they did!). The conclusion could be that trading is just a socially acceptable form of gambling for scientists/people with large amounts of education, rather than that most traders are intelligent (I know many dim PhD's!!! In fact a professor I once worked for was thick as sh!t despite being a world-leader!!!). I know for certain that most of my colleagues have/would never go to the bookies, but their ears prick up when you mention the markets at any point. Maybe it's just a question of the social mores of the traders rather than anything else?
 
mrsoul said:
Did you ever notice that most traders are highly intelligent?
I think that the intellectual challenge of trading is a big reason why many traders start playing this game; I know that was my reason for starting (and, of course, the money too).
You can tell from how well most of the traders write on this forum, and on other forums, that they have alot going on upstairs.
You really are competing against some of the best minds in the world.
I don't know if intelligence will guarantee success in this game but it certainly helps.
I am wondering if anyone else has made the same observation.
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yes, and most of them loose money
 
Did you ever notice that most traders are highly intelligent
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No, my general assessment would be 'pretty much like the general population - a bit thick overall, in fact'. (I think being a bit thick helps, frankly, you think less about all the shades of grey involved in a trade and find it easier to stick to a plan 'cos your brain doesn't keep firing alternative ideas at you every 5 minutes.I also accept that some of the traders I know are extremely bright... whilst some posters on T2W are clearly semi functional at best, to judge by the stuff they post).

I'm (ostensibly) very intelligent and I can look at a 1 hr bar and go from 100% bullish to 100% bearish in 2 minutes flat, having mentally reviewed a couple of dozen 'what if' scenarios along the way, when a slightly less impressive model of brain would have let me simply pick to go with the 'it's above the MA so go long' option that invariably turns out right anyhow.

I think you need commonsense, rather than intelligence - I say my wife has a "financial IQ" much higher than mine, I am humble enough to appreciate which one of us has made most capital gain over the last 10 years while I traded and juggled all sorts of clever ideas and she bought cheap bedsits, slapped some paint, wallpaper and cheap carpet down and rented them out.

Edited to add - Shaztrader has hit the nail on the head there too.
 
DaveJB said:
I think you need commonsense, rather than intelligence - I say my wife has a "financial IQ" much higher than mine, I am humble enough to appreciate which one of us has made most capital gain over the last 10 years while I traded and juggled all sorts of clever ideas and she bought cheap bedsits, slapped some paint, wallpaper and cheap carpet down and rented them out.

.
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The best bit's yet to come...when she kicks you out, moves in the young brickie/plasterer and gives you the key your your new bedsit....you'll still get to see her, when she comes round to collect the rent...:p
 
Nahhh,
thankfully, as anyone who met me on the traders' day meetings dah sarf in past years will tell you, I'm a bit of a bronzed Adonis to look at, with a 2 foot long tongue.
 
Let's cut to the chase.
The ability to trade successfully is multi-factoral, each factor having varied and dynamic importance depending on type of trading and situation.
Intelligence is but one factor.
Just like success in many fields.
Don't know how anyone can think otherwise, so what's the big deal...........
That's it.

Richard
 
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