Captain Kirk: Stock Market Role Model?

A trio of scholars at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta have asserted that Captain Kirk would more likely make gains in the stock market than Mr. Spock.

"Though Spock fully analyzes each situation, he gets too caught up in the details," claimed economists Lucy F. Ackert, Bryan K. Church and Richard Deaves in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The group stated that emotion would allow Kirk to focus and enhance his decision-making ability.

"The prevailing theory on Wall Street, represented by Mr. Spock, is the efficient market hypothesis," wrote reporter Tom Walker. This theory suggests that "markets are efficient — meaning that relevant new information is immediately reflected in stock prices."

But the Kirk model represents what Yale professor Robert Shiller terms "Irrational Exuberance" in his book of the same title. It is "based on the idea that investing can be irrational, fueled by emotion and momentum rather than sober research into corporate fundamentals."

For more on how passionate investors like Kirk trump logical Vulcan types, see the full article here.

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