1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910164954903321

Autore

Preda Alex <1960->

Titolo

Noise : living and trading in electronic finance / / Alex Preda

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, Illinois ; ; London, [England] : , : The University of Chicago Press, , 2017

©2017

ISBN

0-226-42748-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (280 pages)

Disciplina

332.640285/4678

Soggetti

Online stockbrokers

Electronic trading of securities

Electronic trading of securities - Psychological aspects

Investments - Decision making

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-265) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: the ethnography of noise in electronic finance -- Noise in financial markets -- How does one become a trader? -- Taking on the market: competitions and spectacle in trading -- Rituals and illusions of the trading screen -- Talk in trading, talk for trading, talk of trading: group communication in electronic markets -- Trading strategies -- The lives of traders -- Conclusion: bourgeois freedoms.

Sommario/riassunto

We often think of finance as a glamorous world, a place where investment bankers amass huge profits in gleaming downtown skyscrapers. There's another side to finance, though - the millions of amateurs who log on to their computers every day to make their own trades. The shocking truth, however, is that less than 2% of these amateur traders make a consistent profit. Why, then, do they do it? In Noise, Alex Preda explores the world of the people who trade even when by all measures they would be better off not trading. Based on firsthand observations, interviews with traders and brokers, and on international direct trading experience, Preda's fascinating ethnography investigates how ordinary people take up financial trading, how they form communities of their own behind their computer screens, and how electronic finance encourages them to trade more and more



frequently. Along the way, Preda finds the answer to the paradox of amateur trading - the traders aren't so much seeking monetary rewards in the financial markets, rather the trading itself helps them to fulfill their own personal goals and aspirations. -- ǂc Provided by publisher.