Does venting emotion help a trader regain focus or does it exacerbate emotional and physical arousal and interfere with concentration and decision making?
Research actually suggests that venting emotion after a traumatic event can lead to worse psychological outcomes.
The key seems to be whether the venting allows for a reprocessing of the stressful events. If the venting leads to new ways to interpret what has happened--new perspectives--it can be helpful. If there is no such transformation of the stressful event, venting can simply amplify stress responses and reinforce them.
Venting in a social manner to gain control can constitute good coping. But losing emotional control simply reinforces a sense of lost control.
So, play him off: pissed trader.
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Venting is the worst form of accepting defeat and denying accepting responsibility for one's actions.
On a positive note - it is nice to see in this hectic market something that consistently works http://screencast.com/t/1dUSf5yBnr
Just from my experience, I would tend to agree with this. Venting for certain traders seems to work ok; they get their issues out and end up back buddy-buddy after its all said and done. But unless you have all people with those personalities, venting can be very unproductive, especially towards non-traders like analysts/back-office, etc. I think things work best when everyone keeps their cool, and everyone accepts a high level of responsibility, and when you can get the shop to really work as a team, rather than one guy stepping on another.
" ... leads to new ways to interpret what has happened--new perspectives--it can be helpful"
When you take a few losing trades in a row or even a single one, it might be considered a traumatic event.
What I found to work well is to review the trade(s) right away. (or as soon as I can). This allows me rationally "interpret" the event. I am not saying I am not pissed but I channel the anger into the "interpretation". It works like a charm, your brain takes over from your heart.
Good Luck.
Great points; thanks for the comments--
Brett
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