Yesterday I spoke to a client who sounded very different from a year ago. She no longer has the sense of optimism and joy about her recent retirement. She, like other high net worth individuals who lost a significant percentage of their wealth, are feeling insecure. In a recent national survey, high net-worth consumers were much more concerned about their sense of security than their quality of lifestyle. Read the rest of this entry »

I watched a CNN segment today on the potential of controlling the emotions of traders on the floor so that they could make rational vs. emotional decisions while trading. Dr. Lo of MIT is working on such an experiment trying to ultimately improve their performance. If his experiments proved fruitful, he would propose a central risk manager on the floor of the exchange who would monitor the levels of trader distress so that some coaching intervention could identify and then control the distress response trying to manage and eliminate any irrational decisions. Read the rest of this entry »