Stock Doc: The Narcissist Investor

To be the best at what you do for a living, you have to take risks and be confident in your success formula. My clients really believe that their investment strategies are well thought-out, often visualizing a successful trade even before it has been executed. In trading, it is always important to set an endgame goal for how long you will hold on to a specific trade.

In order to manage the anxiety of initial setbacks in a trade, you absolutely must hold on to your convictions about why you engaged in the trade in the first place. Confidence in your strategy is necessary and pivotal if you want to be a successful trader.

However, when you have been on a long winning streak, it is very easy to develop a blind spot in the form of grandiosity and a sense of invincibility. These are some of the very traits commonly recognized in those who may be classified as narcissistic personalities.

In making a clinical diagnosis of a narcissistic personality, an individual's traits must impair the person's social, occupational or academic functioning. Trading narcissism left unchecked can be an investor's undoing.

In my experience, there are several common traits associated with narcissism that can cripple an individual's investment portfolio. They include:

• Giving way to a pervasive pattern of grandiose thinking.
• A need for excessive admiration from others.
• A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success (this can also be coupled with a belief that he or she is special and unique).
• A strong sense of entitlement in expecting immediate compliance.