Stock traders are more egocentric and prone to lying than psychopaths, according to new research submitted to the Journal of Economic Psychology.
But psychopaths are better at getting what they want.
“Traders go out of their way to destroy the competition, even if they don’t get any economic benefit as a result,” says Thomas Noll, who conducted the research as part of his executive MBA at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
…
Faced with a hypothetical choice between co-operating for everyone’s benefit and getting a predictable reward or cheating and possibly getting more for themselves, traders were more likely than psychopaths to cheat, said Noll.As a result, psychopaths, who broke the rules occasionally, won the most, ordinary people, who almost always played by the rules and who co-operated, came in second, while traders, who didn’t care how their actions affected anyone else, cheated the most and won the least.
The story’s all over the ‘Net. I believe the source article, in German, is this one. The last paragraph of the Star article quoted above makes it sound like the game chosen was some version of Prisoners’ Dilemma. If that’s the case, and assuming that the game was set up like most others of that ilk, it seems unfair to refer to what is normally called “betrayal” as cheating – it’s a strategy, with some word or other attached to it, that’s all. Additionally, and again assuming that it’s a relatively normal PD-type game, one could just as easily call the betrayal/cheating choice one of risk minimization, in which case we’re no longer surprised that traders made the least amount of money, are we?
New Zealand lost its AAA grades on local-currency debt at Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s, which both cited concerns about the nation’s fiscal burden. Benchmark government yields rose the most this year.
The outlook is stable after the long-term local-currency rating was reduced one level to AA+ and the foreign-currency rating was cut to AA from AA+, S&P said in a statement, matching actions announced yesterday by Fitch.
…
New Zealand’s net external debt of 83 percent of gross domestic product in U.S. dollar terms at the end of last year compares with the median of 10 percent for AA-rated nations, Fitch said. The current-account deficit, the widest measure of trade because it includes services and investment income, is likely to widen to 4.9 percent of GDP in 2012 and to 5.5 percent the following year, Fitch said.“New Zealand’s high level of net external debt is an outlier among rated peers — a key vulnerability that is likely to persist as the current account deficit is projected to widen again,” Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia-Pacific sovereigns at Fitch, said in the statement. Even so, the country “remains well-placed among the world’s highly-rated sovereign credits.”
The Canadian preferred share market was down today, with PerpetualDiscounts losing 21bp, FixedResets off 8bp andDeemedRetractibles down 1bp. Volatility was good. Volume was very low.
| HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices Values are provisional and are finalized monthly |
|||||||
| Index | Mean Current Yield (at bid) |
Median YTW |
Median Average Trading Value |
Median Mod Dur (YTW) |
Issues | Day’s Perf. | Index Value |
| Ratchet | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | -0.2372 % | 2,083.1 |
| FixedFloater | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | -0.2372 % | 3,133.0 |
| Floater | 3.12 % | 3.44 % | 54,144 | 18.65 | 3 | -0.2372 % | 2,249.2 |
| OpRet | 4.85 % | 2.59 % | 59,208 | 1.60 | 8 | -0.0097 % | 2,442.8 |
| SplitShare | 5.40 % | -0.46 % | 52,323 | 0.41 | 4 | -0.2186 % | 2,483.2 |
| Interest-Bearing | 0.00 % | 0.00 % | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | -0.0097 % | 2,233.7 |
| Perpetual-Premium | 5.65 % | 4.60 % | 110,999 | 0.57 | 16 | -0.0210 % | 2,119.0 |
| Perpetual-Discount | 5.33 % | 5.33 % | 110,003 | 14.77 | 14 | -0.2108 % | 2,240.4 |
| FixedReset | 5.16 % | 3.29 % | 202,377 | 2.65 | 60 | -0.0764 % | 2,320.7 |
| Deemed-Retractible | 5.07 % | 4.59 % | 233,470 | 4.14 | 46 | -0.0131 % | 2,190.2 |
| Performance Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Change | Notes |
| CIU.PR.B | FixedReset | -3.14 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2014-06-01 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 26.50 Bid-YTW : 4.54 % |
| BAM.PR.J | OpRet | -2.18 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Soft Maturity Maturity Date : 2018-03-30 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 26.07 Bid-YTW : 4.66 % |
| FTS.PR.F | Perpetual-Discount | -1.14 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2041-09-29 Maturity Price : 24.06 Evaluated at bid price : 24.35 Bid-YTW : 5.07 % |
| BNA.PR.E | SplitShare | -1.04 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2017-12-10 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 22.81 Bid-YTW : 6.70 % |
| FTS.PR.E | OpRet | 1.02 % | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2013-06-01 Maturity Price : 25.75 Evaluated at bid price : 26.78 Bid-YTW : 2.55 % |
| Volume Highlights | |||
| Issue | Index | Shares Traded |
Notes |
| TD.PR.S | FixedReset | 144,985 | RBC crossed blocks of 96,400 and 43,900, both at 26.00. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.95 Bid-YTW : 3.05 % |
| BNS.PR.R | FixedReset | 95,305 | TD crossed blocks of 79,000 and 12,000, both at 26.17. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 26.12 Bid-YTW : 3.29 % |
| CU.PR.C | FixedReset | 43,350 | RBC crossed 10,000 at 25.40, then 20,000 at 25.50. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Limit Maturity Maturity Date : 2041-09-29 Maturity Price : 23.25 Evaluated at bid price : 25.40 Bid-YTW : 3.64 % |
| BMO.PR.J | Deemed-Retractible | 32,706 | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2016-02-25 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.16 Bid-YTW : 4.47 % |
| CM.PR.G | Perpetual-Premium | 25,465 | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Call Maturity Date : 2014-05-01 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.95 Bid-YTW : 5.31 % |
| BMO.PR.Q | FixedReset | 22,920 | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.05 Bid-YTW : 3.26 % |
| There were 20 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares. | |||
| Wide Spread Highlights | ||
| Issue | Index | Quote Data and Yield Notes |
| CIU.PR.B | FixedReset | Quote: 26.50 – 27.50 Spot Rate : 1.0000 Average : 0.6446 YTW SCENARIO |
| BAM.PR.J | OpRet | Quote: 26.07 – 26.90 Spot Rate : 0.8300 Average : 0.5915 YTW SCENARIO |
| FTS.PR.F | Perpetual-Discount | Quote: 24.35 – 24.85 Spot Rate : 0.5000 Average : 0.3710 YTW SCENARIO |
| ELF.PR.G | Perpetual-Discount | Quote: 21.15 – 21.71 Spot Rate : 0.5600 Average : 0.4635 YTW SCENARIO |
| ELF.PR.F | Perpetual-Discount | Quote: 22.62 – 22.96 Spot Rate : 0.3400 Average : 0.2449 YTW SCENARIO |
| SLF.PR.F | FixedReset | Quote: 26.26 – 26.51 Spot Rate : 0.2500 Average : 0.1628 YTW SCENARIO |