Oppetit believes that "having an open mind means everything." This is the third key trait for trading success. He gave an example.
"After the big crash in 1987, I was trading options in New York. At that time, I did not intend to establish a purely directional position, but considered arbitrage between strike prices."
"For example, the prices of options expiring in November and December were almost the same. There were a lot of arbitrage opportunities, which was surprising. Anyone who was not busy paying margin and still had financial strength, almost completely focused on directional positions, or operated on price volatility."
"In this case, I did not follow the crowd, which is what I call having an open mind and a neutral position. Of course, the aforementioned arbitrage opportunities are not easy to occur now, because the use of computers is too common."
This was an arbitrage opportunity because the prices of options with different strike prices were the same, but the underlying assets were different, and the option prices had to diverge in the end.
"Studying the history of the development of the financial markets or general history can cultivate an open mind. Observe various things: some things become less relevant, and some things become more relevant."