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Strategies & Market Trends : Trading the SPOOs with Patrick Slevin! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jjs_ynot who wrote (3358)	1/29/2000 6:30:00 PM
From: Patrick Slevin	Respond to of 7434

It's a valid point. Early on I had a tremendous sense of worthlessness. What was I contributing to Society? Years ago I was an Engineer; I had value. I was a builder. Now I became a trader; worse, a day trader. A shark that lived off whales. The work was not easy, either. Day traders work much harder than position traders or investors. Heck, I position trade and I am an investor as well. Day trading is very difficult by comparison. But what I had a problem with was the ethos of it all. Why should I make such numbers simply by trading against the odds with no discernable product resulting to the human race? I don't think I ever answered that question to meet my standards of ethics. But I do it anyway. The only person one really needs respect from is him or herself. I certainly do not care if some Ivory Tower dude has a label one way or the other. That entire line of thought about the Nasdaq spreads getting closer comes straight out of the mouths of the SelectNet crowd, by the way. The Harvey Houtin Crowd, the SOES Bandits. It's a self-serving posture. They and the MMs both were trying to mess with the system. Does not solve the ethics of it all, but that's not important. What is important is that it's a business. It's always been a business, there have always been daytraders else there would not be a market. You could not invest in a stock if there wasn't a seller to give it to you. The MMs are daytraders, the pit traders are day traders, the Specialists are day traders. Without these people, then, the only way you could "invest" in whatever stock it was that you wanted to buy you would have to make an appointment. Day traders add to the liquidity. The concept of calling them (us) maggots should then apply to Specialists and Market Makers. These Brokerage Firms, the ones who can Sell Short without borrowing stock....certainly they are maggots on a Royal Scale. This would not occur to the author.