Gerald identifies three trading traits: Hope, mope and dope. Hope is a key emotion when you play the markets but he says if you think it’s the dominant emotion when things are going well, you need to think again. He believes that bull markets are actually driven by fear and he explains why. He also highlights the fact that we feel the pain of losses at twice the rate we feel satisfaction of any gain and refers to the work of psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in this area.

Gerald says that we often take profits too soon and run our losses too long. And when we’re losing, we start taking bizarre decisions, such as increasing the position size. He gives good advice as to how best to avoid the emotional trading traps.