Were you surprised by the strength of the current rally, which has taken the S&P 500 to new all-time highs in an almost vertical trajectory? If so, and you are a guy, you might not want to admit it.

Men, as a gender, tend to identify with what we know. If you don’t believe me, think about how you feel when someone tells you to do something you were just about to do, or pedantically informs you about a fact you already knew. Isn’t it irritating?

IT’S ABOUT BEING RIGHT

Most of us have been trained from childhood to value being right. In my generation, almost everyone had some anxiety about bringing home poor grades on a report card. Moreover, we all witnessed classmates publicly shamed when they didn’t know the answer to a teacher’s question. Maybe that happened to you. The kid in the corner with the dunce cap is the icon of this aversive conditioning syndrome. (Historically, girls have had fewer intellectual demands placed on them.)

When we leave school and join the workforce, the epistemic standard doesn’t change all that much. Climbing the corporate ladder depends on being smarter than the competition and having the right solutions for an endless series of problems. Errors in our facts, plans or execution can end careers. 

TRADING IS DIFFERENT

Trading, however, is probably the only profession where being right just 50% of the time could be a sign of intelligence and experience… and even make you millions.

And this is why a background of success in the corporate world or in other professions where being 99.999% right is essential (accounting, engineering, medicine) often doesn’t translate into trading success. In fact, the search for certainty actually impedes it.

LAWYERS MAY BE BETTER TRADERS

Ironically, it’s also why lawyers tend to make better traders than doctors. Markets are more like a loud argument than a scientific experiment. Trial lawyers don’t care as much about right and wrong as they do about winning, so to gain an edge they strategize, opportunistically exploit weaknesses and cultivate a pragmatic deviousness.

Lawyer jokes notwithstanding, we could all learn something from these folks.

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Join Dr. Kenneth Reid, a trading coach,  each Wednesday on TraderPlanet for his: The Dr. Is In column.