While Hollywood has frequently portrayed traders and investors as overbearing, self-confident bulls, research suggests that emotionally stable and level-headed personalities are more likely to win out in the battle for alpha.

Research by US behavioural finance specialist MarketPsych into the personality traits most closely correlated with successful investors found that "emotional stability" and "openness" came out on top during the past five years. Openness was the characteristic most closely correlated with the lowest lifetime losses.