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To: SJS who wrote (2384)	7/14/1999 8:33:00 PM
From: Raymond James Norris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10027

SJS, However I do take exception with this comment: Note: Trading is a zero sums game. For every winner, there is a loser. This is patently NOT true. When I sell a stock higher than where I bought it. I make a profit. I'm sorry you feel that way but I assure you it is. You're only looking at one side of the equation: The people that buy. But there is another side to every trade that occurs: Those that sell short. From Dr. Elder's Trading for a Living Book: "Brokers, exchanges, and advisors run marketing campaigns to attract more losers to the markets. They count on the fact more people feel smarter than average and expect to win in a zero-sum game. Winners in a zero sum game make as much as losers lose. If you and I bet 10$ on the direction of the next 100 point move in the Dow, one of us will collect $10 and the other will lose $10. The person that is smarter should win this game over a period of time. People buy the trading industry's propaganda about the zero sum game, take the bait and open trading accounts. They do not realize that trading is a minus sum game. Winners receive less than what losers lose because the industry drains money from the market. For example, roulette in a casino is a minus sum game because the casino sweeps away 3 to 6 % of all bets. This makes roulette unwinnable in the long run. You and I can get into a minus sum game if we make the same $10 bet on the next 100 point move in the Dow but deal through brokers. When we settle, the loser is out $13 and the winner collects only $7, while the two brokers smile all the way to the bank. << Regardless of whether a stock moves up or down, someone always loses money and someone always makes money. For simplification, I ignored the effect of commissions in discussion these boards. Without them, trading would be a zero sum game where every loser loses as much as every winner. If this was a zero sum game, it would have been over years ago. Oh to the contrary. If you think about it logically, the only way that trading exists today is because it is a zero sum game. A zero sum game can go on forever. A positive sum game, however, cannot. Conservatively Yours, Raymond J. Norris