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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: werefrog who wrote (57022)	4/2/2001 4:01:00 PM
From: Dave	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

That's your loss, and many astute traders [sic] gain. Astute traders? Like "wise gamblers," that sounds oxymoronic. Your [sic] the one that criticized the bot for not being a [sic] astute trader,... As far as I know, neither the bot nor I are traders. Where did you see me make that criticism? ...so how can you claim to be astute. Did I claim that? I don't think I did. Maybe you're confusing me with somebody else. When the market is going up, as it has for most of the past two decades, a trader is like a gambler in a casino with the odds stacked against the house (don't look for such a casino in Vegas!). He can trade in and out of positions, and on average, he will gain money, assuming he's trading in large enough quantities relative to his broker's commission. But when the market sours, he is like a gambler in a normal casino where the odds are stacked against the gambler. He will, on average, lose money. I don't choose to play that game, because I think it's a sucker's game, and better suited to the nature of frustrated Lotto contestants than of thoughtful investors. Sure, like a leech, a trader can occasionally suck some blood from an unsuspecting market and fill its belly with profit, but eventually, he will be brushed angrily off by the indignant market and will be stepped on. And unlike the evolutionarily successful leech, traders, for the most part, suck blood from one another. Many traders bot [sic] msft at 56 during that interview, held a few minutes, and sold making a nice profit. Perhaps, but for every trader who profited that way, another guessed the timing incorrectly and lost money. The traders aren't buying from and selling to thin air. Dave