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Overview

Besides a lot of information about stock markets, what can you learn from someone who worked on Wall Street? You might be surprised to find out that by analyzing the behavior of traders, we can discover how our hormones affect our lives. We can also learn how to deal with stress in general.

Written by a trader turned neuroscientist, this book aims to explain the bubbles and crashes of the stock market in terms of our physiology and biochemical processes. The key points contain lessons that are relevant not only to making your fortune on the stock market but also all areas of life.

In this article, you’ll learn that intuition is more of a physical response than it is mental. We make decisions to act before we’re consciously aware of them. Furthermore, men and women react differently to stress in their bodies; hiring more women and older men will help decrease the risk of market crashes; and so on.

Big Idea #1: You think with your whole body, not just your brain.

When you think about the connection between your brain and body, do you picture them as separate entities? Do you see your brain in control of everything that happens in your body, causing every action it takes?

If you’re hungry, then your stomach might be telling your brain that it’s time to eat. This is because a hormone called ghrelin is released when the stomach isn’t full. It tells the brain that you need food and prompts you to raid the fridge for something edible.

Ghrelin is a hormone that tells you when to eat. If you have strong reasons not to eat, such as being on a hunger strike or religious fast, then you can ignore Ghrelin’s signals. However, after some time, Ghrelin will become more persistent and harder to ignore.

This shows that certain body parts can influence the brain, specifically hunger. The gut also influences the brain in this way too. Whenever we are stressed, our brains will inform our guts to prepare for a threat. This means stopping digestion so that energy is available for either fight or flight (stress). Stress works both ways and an overly sensitive gut can affect thinking as well. People with Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), are more sensitive to emotional stimuli than healthy people because their guts are overactive. If they see images of distressed children, they become emotionally aroused more easily than healthy people do when exposed to emotive pictures like those of distressed children.

Big Idea #2: Testosterone has a massive influence on our behavior, especially by inclining us to take risks.

Testosterone is a powerful hormone that influences our behavior.

If you’re in a situation where you have to compete for an extended period of time, the body releases testosterone. It increases your metabolism and cell growth rate, giving you physical strength and increasing your mood.

Testosterone can make us take risks, but it also makes us less risk averse. In competitive environments such as the stock market trading floor, this can be destructive.

The author of this passage examined the relationship between testosterone levels and trading skills. He found that high testosterone levels don’t increase skill, but they do make traders take on more risks than people with lower levels of testosterone.

Taking risks can help you succeed, but taking too many risks will result in reckless behavior.

This phenomenon has also been observed in animals. After a fight, the winner’s testosterone levels increase and his body becomes ready for another fight. The loser experiences a drop in testosterone levels and avoids fighting again.