Nov

28

Lucky charms, from M. Humbert

November 28, 2025 |

Anyone have any favorite good luck charms/rituals to help with trading results?

Peter Ringel writes:

some of the old floor traders, we had on this list, reported how superstitious some of the traders were. Cloths, bathroom time…

Asindu Drileba comments:

Lucky charms may sound delusional but they are actually more common than we think. They are more like placebos. I take pill X, my headache goes away. (But pill X is made from wheat flour and a bitter "filler" and has exactly zero pharmaceutical contents, yet it works).

Have you ever pushed the button that opens the door of an elevator? Well, those buttons are completely fake! Elevator doors are pre-programmed to open and close at hard coded intervals. Pushing the button does nothing. They simply exist to give people a sense of control.

Nils Poertner writes:

To have a strong belief one can learn (from mkts or others) is a good start.
ie allowing for mistakes to happen, not fretting them. (many cultures are guilt-ridden, like the German culture on so many fronts. All it takes is sometimes to muster up enough courage and learn from mistakes and don't judge).

Zubin Al Genubi offers:

I'm reading Kidding Ourselves, Hidden Power of Self Deception, by Hallinan, in which he describes real physical and psychological effects of psychosomatic causes such as death, hallucinations. You see what you want to see. You are and become what you believe yourself to be. It affects health, performance, money. He also describes how a feeling of lack of control can be debilitating and even deadly. Some feel a lack of control in that they don't control the market, but one can easily (physically at least) click the keys to buy and sell any time.

From scientific studies: Our results suggest that the activation of a superstition can indeed yield performance-improving effects.


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