Rethinking calculation

The Popularization of Financial Trading Outside the Global Centres of Finance

Bibliographic Data

ID2159702
AuthorsGalit Ailon (0000-0002-4595-5439)
Year2015
Volume44
Issue4
Pages592-615
Publication date2015-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomy and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-5147 • E-ISSN: 1469-5766
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03085147.2015.1057954
OpenAlexW2232247346
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited32

The paper looks at the popularization of financial trading in Israel. It presents a qualitative analysis of the calculative models and techniques that are promoted by financial trading schools, service firms and books. Broadly, the popularization of trading in this field involves a focus on ‘technical analysis’ (TA) and relies upon a socio-psychological reading of financial charts. Incorporating explicitly non-economic ideas into traders’ calculative logic – including an emic notion of ‘performativity’ – popular TA constitutes an attempt to ‘reverse’ the making of markets: to calculatively trace price formations back to the minds, hearts and arrangement from which they had allegedly sprung as a means of foreseeing their future shape before it fully materializes. Tying the psyche and the market in a calculative loop, popular TA transcends existing social theories of financial calculation. The paper discusses this challenge and its implications for our understanding of the expansion of finance

Economics · Economy · Field (mathematics · Financial economics · Financial market · Financial services · Microeconomics · Performativity · Service (business · Sociology · Tying · Economic Theory and Policy · Housing Market and Economics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Finance

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