Olympic Sports for Traders

Today, we examine which winter Olympic sport you should compete in, based on your trading style.

The Scalper

Short track speed skating is your sport. Like scalping, it's fast and furious, requires lightning fast reflexes and the ability to read the competiton instinctively. And you can go form hero to zero in the blink of an eye. There are only two kinds of competitors here: the quick and the dead.

The Daytrader

Daytraders go for downhill skiing. You jump out of the start house at 9:30 AM and rush headlong to the finish at 4 PM. Like downhill skiiers, the daytrader needs courage, confidence, and ambition to negotiate the twists, turns, and jumps the course provides on every run. The daytrader needs to be flexible to adapt to changing course conditions throught the day. Like the downhiller, daytrading generally ends one of two ways: on the podium or on the stretcher.

The Option Trader

Curling is the ticket for option traders. Exciting only to the participants, both come with a built-in countdown clock. When it's done, so are you. And like options, curling comes complete with a set of convoluted rules and strategies that would make Bobby Fischer's head explode. Sweep, curl, put, call, spread, straddle... kaboom!

The Swing Trader

The biathlon is the sport for swing traders. Not quite as lethal as the downhill and not quite as baroque as options trading. You definitely have to pace yourself here. The lead can change hands many times and the eventual winner is often not the one you'd have picked from the start. And like in biathlon, when the swing trader pulls the trigger and misses, they have to ski a penalty loop to get back to even.

Well, there you have it. Now back to Bob Costas...