Mental patient and master trader.
In 2005, psychologists and neuroeconomists from Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Iowa formed a joint research group. They designed a 20-round gambling game. The rules of the game are simple-flip a coin and lose $65,438+0; If you win, you will get $2.50.
Normal people can see at a glance that in this game, participants have a "probability advantage." In other words, the most correct strategy is to invest money every round.
Here comes the fun place.
Unexpected experimental results
The research team selected three groups of people to take part in the experiment. A group are normal people; One group is a patient who has been injured in the area related to emotion (amygdala) in the brain; One is patients with injuries in other areas of the brain that have nothing to do with emotions.
The result is beyond most people's expectation.
With the progress of the competition, the participants in the first and third groups became more and more conservative. In order to keep the fruits of victory, they stopped betting at the end of the competition.
Participants in the second group were not touched by the "fruits of victory" at all. They bet all the way and finally won much more money than the other two groups.
Emotion is the enemy of trading.
Did you find it? Although you only need primary school math level to find the right strategy, it is difficult for normal people to implement this strategy-they are held back by emotions.
If this experiment is regarded as the examination of traders, it is obviously the complete victory of the second group. Because of brain damage, they are no longer disturbed by emotions. In this special case, emotional interference is not good for the transaction. So they are equivalent to breaking free from the shackles and moving forward.
In fact, in most cases, emotions are the enemy of trading. However, if it is concluded that mental patients are more suitable to be traders. This conclusion is obviously too arbitrary. But on the other hand, you have to admit that this interesting experiment is actually worth our deep thinking.
The Excellence of the madman
In fact, British scientist Kevin Dutton has been studying mental patients for 30 years. He has a psychotic father and a psychotic friend, and he has become an authority in this field all over the world. He wrote a book "Why crazy people are more likely to succeed than ordinary people" based on his years of research results.
His research shows that mental patients have a very important ability, that is, they have no feelings.
To put it simply, I don't care about other people's feelings. In interpersonal relationships, such people will obviously hit a wall everywhere. But in some areas, they will perform better than ordinary people.
Buffett's greed
Let's continue to take the transaction as an example. When the whole market is in extreme panic, if you fall in love with the market, then your mood will be panic.
Buffett said that this time should actually be when you are greedy.
Remember how many Goldman Sachs he bought at the end of the financial crisis in 2008? Ask yourself, did you dare to buy it then? What is holding you back?
In fact, Kevin's research goes far beyond the transaction level. He found that a person with certain psychopathic characteristics may not only become a better trader, but also become a better CEO, a better lawyer or a policeman and so on.
Of course, the premise is an appropriate degree.
The mystery of "sunbathing"
In his own words, "mental illness is like sunshine. Contact may lead to cancer and accelerate a person's death. However, regular sun exposure and reasonable sun exposure will have a positive effect on health and life. "
He even summed up seven elements that we should learn from mental patients while we are not possessed-ruthlessness, charm, concentration, perseverance, fearlessness, mindfulness and action.
I don't know why, it reminds me of the Zen master in China.
Is Buffett a psycho?
You may be surprised by this title. Then, please try to sit down after the dance. Believe me, I won't grandstanding my favorite dad.
I'd like to introduce another person to you first, Mark Cyrus. Mark is the founder of the hedge fund Sellers Capital Fund and once served as the chief stock strategist at Morningstar. In 2008, he gave a famous speech at Harvard University, which I called "You can't be a great investor's seven doors".
At the beginning of Mark's speech, he mercilessly poured cold water on the high flyers of Harvard. "You have almost no chance to be a great investor. You only have a very, very low probability, such as 2%, or even lower. This has taken into account the fact that you are all very smart and hardworking people and will soon get an MBA degree from one of the top business schools in this country. "
Great investors have seven characteristics.
Mark said, it doesn't matter what your IQ is, how many books, newspapers and magazines you have read, how much experience you have in your future career or how much experience you will have. Many people have these qualities, but few people have achieved a compound rate of return of 20% or 25% in their careers.
"Unless you have something special in your brain when you are eleven or twelve. I'm not sure if it's natural or acquired, but if you didn't have this trait in your teens, then you won't have it again. "
After pouring at least a bucket of cold water on high flyers, Mark made his key point-"I think at least seven characteristics are the same characteristics of great investors. This is a real advantage resource that you can't get once you become an adult. In fact, some of these qualities can't even be learned. You must be born with it. If not, it will be hard to find in this life. "
Perseverance, fearlessness and mindfulness
Please look at the fourth trait "perseverance" of mental patients. They have the ability to move along their own route without looking around.
The seventh characteristic of great investors is that they can change their investment ideas in the process of investment.
Please look at the fifth trait "fearless" and the sixth trait "mindfulness" of psychopaths. In fact, psychopaths don't care what others think of them. Their anxiety level is much lower than that of ordinary people.
After completing this online game, you will surely make an amazing discovery-five of the seven characteristics of great investors are consistent with those of mental patients.
Would you believe it was just a coincidence?
In fact, maybe we should re-recognize the phenomenon of mental illness.
Who says great investors are born?
I want to introduce an interesting study. In 20 10, three scientists investigated every biographer of the president of the United States. The results show that many American presidents show obvious psychopathic characteristics, among which Kennedy and Clinton bear the brunt.
John ray, a sociologist, said that neither the extremely low level nor the extremely high level of mental illness is the best state, and a certain level in the middle is the most adaptable. High-level psychopaths often bring trouble to themselves, while low-level psychopaths are prone to anxiety. If the state is adjusted to a certain value in the middle, it is likely to occupy an advantage in society.
That's it. Let's see what Mark said. The seven characteristics of great investors are mainly cultivated by talent and childhood, and cannot be acquired in adulthood. I don't agree with this. Examples of surgeons, marines, bomb disposal teams and other industries show that your degree of psychopathy can be trained the day after tomorrow.
This means that besides the hand of God, there is also your own hand holding the tuning knob.
Coincidence between great investors and mental patients
There is no doubt that this is a wonderful and shocking speech. But this is obviously not all I want to say. Actually, what I want to say has not yet begun. I read this speech a few years ago. I didn't reread it until I saw Kevin Dutton's research on psychopaths. I suddenly felt suddenly enlightened.
Mark's Seven Characteristics of Great Investors is highly consistent with Kevin's General Characteristics of Psychopaths.
So is Buffett a psychopath? Before answering this question, I suggest you say "color is empty, and empty is color" three times.
Decisive and ruthless
Before answering, let's review that Kevin Dutton, a world-class authoritative expert in psychiatry, once classified the unique skills of psychopaths into seven categories-1. Ruthless; 2。 Charm; 3。 Focus; 4。 Perseverance; 5。 Fearless; 6。 Mindfulness; 7。 Action.
Mark, the investment guru, happened to talk about the seven characteristics of great investors in his opinion.
So is Buffett a psychopath? Let's play an online game-match the seven characteristics of great investors mentioned by Mark with the seven characteristics of psychopaths summarized by Kevin.
The first characteristic of great investors is that they can buy stocks decisively when others are scared and sell stocks when others are blindly optimistic. Please see: the 1 trait of psychopaths is "heartless"-greedy when others are afraid, and fearful when others are greedy, which shows that they are not emotional contagion by the public, which is a highly insensitive ability.
Desire and concentration to win.
The second characteristic of great investors is that great investors are extremely fascinated by this game and have a strong desire to win.
Please see: The third characteristic of mental patients is "concentration". Most mental patients have a determination to never stop until they reach their goals.
The fourth characteristic of great investors is their innate risk awareness based on common sense.
Many facts have proved that psychopaths often have an extraordinary sense of smell. Psychologist Angela? Booker once did an experiment. She distributed the Psychopathy Self-Test Table to 47 male college students, and divided them into high group and low group according to the results. Then, she asked 12 volunteers to walk along the corridor and recorded their gait. Some of these people have been hurt and some have not.
Accurate judgment
Then Booker showed the video of 12 to 47 college students, and asked them to rate the vulnerability of each target in the range of 1 to 10.
The experimental results show that those with high scores are better at judging the weaknesses of others than those with low scores. Later, Booker went to prison to give this test to real mental patients, and the results showed that their judgment was more accurate.
This is a natural sense of smell.
The fifth characteristic of great investors is that great investors have absolute confidence in their own ideas. For example, Buffett insists on not joining the crazy internet craze, even in the face of many criticisms.
The first trait is the ability to buy stocks decisively when others panic and sell stocks when others are blindly optimistic.
The second feature is that great investors are all fascinated by this game and have a strong desire to win. They don't just like investing. Investment is their life. They are always absent-minded and dreaming about stocks.
The third trait is a strong will to learn from past mistakes.
The fourth feature is the innate risk awareness based on common sense.
The fifth feature is that great investors have absolute confidence in their ideas, even in the face of criticism. Buffett insists on not participating in the crazy internet craze. Barron's Weekly put him on the cover with the headline "Warren, where are you wrong?" Of course, this further proved Buffett's wisdom afterwards, and Barron's Weekly became a perfect negative textbook.
The sixth feature is that both the left brain and the right brain work well, not just the left brain (good at mathematics and organization). I believe that both brains of a great investor are working. As an investor, you need to run calculations and have a logical and reasonable investment theory, which is what the left brain does. But you need to do something else, such as judging the management team of the company according to subtle clues. You need to calm down and draw a big picture of the current situation in your mind, instead of making a dead analysis. You should have a sense of humor, a modest attitude and basic common sense. Most importantly, I think you should also be a good writer.
Seventh, it is also the most rare trait: the ability to change investment ideas in the process of investment.
After talking about the above seven characteristics, Mark repeatedly stressed that once people enter adulthood, they cannot learn the above characteristics. He believes that this potential is closely related to the structure of human brain tissue and childhood experiences.