From Pit Bll, Martin S Schwarz

"It's the latest, it's the greatest, come on baby, it's so easy to do.
Oh, mashed potato es, mashed potatoes, you can do it too.
Mashed potatoes, mashed potato es, yeah, yeah, yeah. . . ."
It was 3:59. Hayes Noel and I were up on the balls of our
feet, twisting our crepe-soled shoes in opposite directions,
dancing around the floor of the American Stock Exchange
singing Dee Dee Sharp's 1962 hit. As my young son would later
say, " It had been a big busy day." Discarded buy-sell slips cov-
ered the floor and we were getting some good sliding action. We
were hot. I was up ten grand on paper for the day with only a
minute to go. I'd only been trading on the floor for a couple of
months, and I was so happy that I was doing so well and that
my positions were all marked up in my favor that I didn't real-
ize that I should have converted the ten grand into real money.
The market opened way down the next day, and because I'd
been dancing instead of closing out my positions, I was locked
in and lost the whole $10,000 in paper profits. From then on, I
always fought back the temptation to start dancing before I'd
heard the cash register ring. When you feel like doing the
mashed potatoes, it's avisceral clue that you've lost your objectivity,
you've gotten too emotional, and you're about to go into
the shitter. The other thing that's stupid is that you actually think you're
dancing well. And, of course, you're not.