Long Ring Fingers May Point to Wealth in Traders, Study Says

Aside from being a strong candidate for virtually defining Correlation Is Not Causation, the paragraph<p>"Even within high-frequency trading, comparing the finger ratio only works if traders have equal access to capital and information, and similar risk limits, said Coates [who] was able to adjust the study data to minimize the influence of these factors."<p>gives me pause. You know, with the right correction to the data set, I can make ANYTHING look statistically significant. (Particularly when I'm allowed to try out an arbitrary number of corrections and discard the ones which fail to produce a data set that supports my hypothesis.)

If the high earners are the high risk takers, the study should also consider the high risk takers who went broke and therefore are not traders anymore. Still, it is interesting that behaviors differ so much.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio#Correlation_between_digit_ratio_and_psychological_traits" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio#Correlation_between...</a>

This is very interesting. 10x; talk about statistically significant.

I believe the paper discussed is: <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/12/0810907106.abstract?sid=fc8f7e4b-b7ff-48d0-8ec1-64d6cd40b248" rel="nofollow">http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/12/0810907106.abst...</a><p>There is this related paper which looks interesting: <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/105/16/6167" rel="nofollow">http://www.pnas.org/content/105/16/6167</a>

That's surprising to me because long ring fingers also correlate with lower exam scores: <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&#38;_udi=B6T4T-4GFV5WY-1&#38;_user=10&#38;_coverDate=02%2F28%2F2006&#38;_rdoc=1&#38;_fmt=&#38;_orig=search&#38;_sort=d&#38;view=c&#38;_acct=C000050221&#38;_version=1&#38;_urlVersion=0&#38;_userid=10&#38;md5=fa6feef79cd5a3abf035313517779a39" rel="nofollow">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&#38;_udi...</a><p>Is aggression more important than brains for traders?

I'm not saying that they're wrong, but.. <a href="http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/8652/machovsgaydu7.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/8652/machovsgaydu7.jpg</a>

The study says that these traders are paid more, not that they are more succesful in their trades. Might be that high testosterone makes you a better negotiator or more aggresive in pursuing wealth etc.