What Traders’ Testosterone Tells Us About Markets
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June 11 (Bloomberg) -- An unusual study of traders’ spitmay offer a taste of the future in how we understand what drivesmarkets -- and why they aren’t as stable and efficient as wemight hope.
Several years ago, two neuroscientists undertook anexperiment on the trading floor of a major investment bank inLondon. Over eight consecutive business days, at both 11 a.m.and 4 p.m., John Coates and Joe Herbert took samples of salivafrom the mouths of 17 traders. With these samples, taken beforeand after the bulk of the day’s trading activity, they measuredthe rising and falling levels of a number of steroid hormones,including testosterone, adrenaline and cortisol.