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Anxious New York traders seek therapy

They are the meanest, toughest, smartest financiers in the world, with a caffeine-fuelled, adrenaline-driven lifestyle. But for Wall Street’s top traders, the strain is beginning to tell from month upon month of wildly volatile stock markets.

Alarmed by billions of dollars in delinquent mortgages, shares have swung backwards and forwards at a speed that has startled even the most grizzled of financial veterans. For brokers, the wobbles have caused huge financial pain — and the physical stress is becoming apparent. Sweaty palms, racing hearts, blurred vision, and headaches abound. Psychiatrists report a surge in traders seeking help to handle the pressure.

A Connecticut-based psychiatrist, Ari Kiev, specialises in working in hedge funds to counsel staff — and he says some are experiencing symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress. For so-called “hedgies,” he says, the trigger tends to come when clients start to withdraw money: “Aside from the fact that your job may be in jeopardy, you lose confidence in your money, you lose confidence in yourself, you lose confidence in the analyst who’s giving you your ideas.”

Some, says Dr. Kiev, react by entering a state of near paralysis, in which they are afraid of placing the smallest of trades. Others go in the opposite direction, losing all judgment: “They start selling furiously, then when the market turns up, they immediately buy. They’re too reactive, far too anxious.”

From its peak in early October, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 10 per cent in six weeks. It lurched 7 per cent higher in early December, before recording a pre-Christmas plunge. Alden Cass, a psychologist and head of Catalyst Strategies in New York, makes a living out of helping high-flyers to deal with burnout. He estimates that enquiries jumped by between 25 per cent and 30 per cent in the final months of last year. “The referrals tend to come from the wives of traders who put in a call and ask for help for their husbands,” says Dr. Cass. He offers a blunt description of the typical problem: “Their emotions are fried.” — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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