Can successful Traders have a conscience? - Traders Laboratory - Active Traders Forum | Thread profile

This is a very interesting question, and not one which I have seen mentioned. Can successful Traders have a conscience? When a Trader is in working mode, I do not think that they can afford to have a real conscience, and also be successful. To have a conscience is to deal on emotion. A good Trader will only see a commodity, not the investment itself. They are ...

I dont really think that a successful trader can have a conscience. The best traders seem to deal on cold hard information, and not have "favourite" areas of investment. Take "Black Monday" in the UK, when George Soros took on the Bank of England and won. He knew that the facts did not stack up with the reality and gambled on a change in policy by the UK Government....

This is a bit of a loaded question, as to me the comments thus far seem to suggest that a professional trader suffers from a lack of ethics and I simply do not subscribe to that theory at all. I also do not subscribe to the theory that successful traders are emotionless automatons when trading either. There is not a trader alive who is totally emotionless in the heat of ...

Interesting but hard topic to answer. Traders by nature are very aggressive and thick-skinned. That does not necessarily mean we suffer from a lack of ethics or values. Yes, I am sure you will find unethical traders such as the Enron traders who found it entertaining to shut off California's electrical power. (so they can profit from rising electricity prices) I also ...

I agree Soul. There are undoubtedly some actions taken by certain parties that members of the general public might find in bad taste or even unconscionable, yet you will often find those self same people who were so quick to judge others taking similar actions on their own that they quickly excuse away as acceptable. There is just no accounting for the way some people ...

Sorry if I have been a little misunderstood. I am not trying to say that all traders have no ethics or values, just pointing out (like Soultrader said) that traders tend to be more thick skinned than most. Its like the traders who sell airlines short after a crash - now I would not do that, but I know some traders who would. That opens another issue, if nobody acts ...

Quote: Trade Up Its like the traders who sell airlines short after a crash - now I would not do that, but I know some traders who would. I hope this does not make me unethical but I would disagree with that statement. We have become traders to ...

Trading in general is amoral (setting aside hostile takeovers, pillaging companies, stock scams and the rest). You buy from people that want to sell, and you sell to those that want to buy. Your actions have no impact on the company. If you want to hold stocks for longer terms and don't want to get all icky by associating with tobacco, for example, then remember that ...

As a simple addition: if you're so magically, supernaturally good as a trader that you know the stock will drop, then by shorting, you are depriving someone from their potential profits. So if you think you're God, you shouldn't trade. Speaking personally, if you think you're God, I would like you to trade. To ease your conscience, why not tell me what you're trading so...

Some interesting comments, and maybe not the poll vote I had expected. There appears to be some difference of opinion as to what may or may not be ethical, but no matter what we think, the market will always react to different situations and the "true" price will always show through. I think a good trader will just see a situation as that, and not think of the ...