A recent survey released by the International Stock Players Institute of Las Vegas Nevada suggested that eight and a half out of ten Players had some type of personal superstition about the Market.

How could you make that stock purchase, if on the way to work, you tore your coat, spilled the salt and ran in the wall?  Still feel good about making that big investment, or would you rather wait?  What about the way a stock price drops just after you brag to someone how good you are doing?  Do you wish you had kept your mouth shut?

Along with this it seems that another basic mentality common to most Traders or Players is a type of gambling ethic.  Everyone recognizes the term "risk" and consequently this factor somehow gets converted into a "Market-gambler personality" which has varying degrees of influence on each individual or Market speculator.

Some go for the quick rush of day trading while others temper their gambling personality into longer term approaches which warrant definitions more acceptable such as calling it "risk management", or "asset allocated leveraged hedge fund".  Call it what you will.  Throughout the study, one common element identified in the personality traits continually appeared.  It seems that the Trader, Player or Speculator, (it doesn't matter what they are called), all share an unusal optimism.  It is named after the famous hockey player Brain Eyegott, who during a losing streak received a puck to the groin one night, and it changed his luck and his life thereafter.  Forced to sit at a computer, he began day trading stocks on the Internet, made a fortune, and eventually bought the hockey team.  Once you have suffered the "Eyegott-pucked" anomaly, it means you must start all over again, but you will certainly recover.

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