Greed Is NOT Good

I took part in a discussion over at the Forex Magnates site, where some traders expressed the view that "Greed is Good" and "There is nothing wrong with greed. Greed means you want things".  I disagree.  I don't think it's that simple. I think that greed at the corporate level is not good, and that greed at a personal level is not good, especially if you're a trader. I'm not the only one.

Here's an hour long video recorded at the Edge "Reflections on a crisis" event held in Munich earlier this year. In it Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, rogue options trader and author, discuss how human failings and corporate greed led us into the current economic crisis:

Returning from the lofty heights of Nobel prize winners and intellectual authors to one's own trading success, here is a quote from Ed Seykota, one of the original "Market Wizards".

Becoming a better trader and becoming a better person seem to go together.

In conclusion here is another video, in which Ed Seykota distils his vast experience of trend following trading systems for our benefit:

Thanks Ed!