The Hindu Business Line : Are you lucky?

Consider this. Your friend tells you that he bought his dream car with the profits he made from trading in the stock market. This encourages you to dabble in the markets too.

Your portfolio, however, declines 25 per cent. Will you blame ill-luck or worse still conclude that your friend was just lucky? If you do, you are not alone. Some of us always consider ourselves unlucky and others lucky. Why?

Research has shown that lucky people are positive and take action. It is then that luck favours them. So, it all starts in the mind. In one study, the subjects were asked to imagine that they were shot in the hand by a robber. Some reacted saying that they were lucky not to be shot in the head! Others replied that it was their misfortune to be shot at.

Expectedly, the people who considered themselves lucky to be alive were more successful in real life. Prof Richard Wiseman discusses the traits that such people have in his book The Luck Factor.

In one experiment, he gave lucky and unlucky people a newspaper each and asked them to count the number of photographs in it. The lucky ones took a few seconds while the unlucky ones averaged two minutes. Why? The newspaper contained information on the number of photographs, which the lucky ones noticed and the unlucky ones did not.

It is the same in the market. The lucky traders (the successful ones) are quick to observe a pattern and take advantage of it. The unlucky ones do not and then blame fate. Are you a successful trader? If not, remember this if nothing else: The man who wins is the man who thinks he can.

(The author is based in Toronto, Canada.)

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