Stress Management for professional traders

An additional course in the disciplines taught at the CIT…

This program comes as an addition to the course in trader psychology. Psychologists with experience in professional situations of this kind oversee a theoretical training course. It allows students to learn a code of conduct to follow in the event of distressing or alarming situations.  In addition to these coaching courses, students have behavioral follow-up sessions based on their practice in the Trading Room, throughout which they have the opportunity to share their experiences.

…Which is no less important.

If there are numerous unjustified clichés surrounding finance, those related to the stress that traders experience is in itself quite justified. The management of the millions of Euros contained in portfolios, with the added risks of making a bad decision, or not being able to predict the unpredictable is at times fatal to the morale of the person in question. The history of finance in the twentieth century has been at times tainted by violence and desperate acts of financial professionals who lost everything.

Today finance has evolved towards a more reliable and stricter trading model but the men and women who work in the markets are not shielded from excessive stress that can lead to destructive situations. The subprime crisis in 2008 and the deterioration of trading’s public image increased the pressure weighing on professional traders’ shoulders, as one of our faculty explains in a recent article. This is why the CIT, as an organization that promotes responsible financial behavior that also takes the humanistic side of trading into account, offers a stress management program directly related to the other subjects taught.

Students will study modern psychological theories exploring the workings of group mechanics in Trading Rooms that can lead to anxiety, and the techniques used to fight against such negative influences. In this regard, behavioral psychology plays an important role, as Laura Oates, a stress management specialist, explains in the video below.