Now that we “know” (what was has been suspected all along) that traders are nuts it’s worth looking at what a textbook definition of a psycho actually is.

1. Considerable superficial charm, verbal facility and average or above average intelligence.

2. Unreliability, disregard for obligations, no sense of responsibility.

3. Untruthfulness and insincerity.

4. Inexplicable impulsiveness.

5. Antisocial behavior.

6. Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience.

7. Total self-contriteness.

8. General poverty of deep and lasting emotions.

9. Lack of any true insight, inability to see oneself as others do.

10. Fantastic and objectionable behavior, after drinking and sometimes even when not drinking--vulgarity, rudeness, quick mood shifts, pranks.

11. An impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated sex life.

There was a point in my life where I thought of myself as a successful trader. A “Master of the Universe”; a “Big swinging dick”. That was 20 years ago. Looking at the above list makes me cringe. To one degree or another all the descriptions fit parts of my life at the time.