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Strategies & Market Trends : Are you considering quitting your dayjob to daytrade?! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kaz who wrote (497)	1/31/1999 6:46:00 AM
From: The Street	Respond to of 611

kaz-- I respect what you are saying-- but, it is like you are comparing this to blackjack. That IS a zero sum game. Usually the house gets a .5% tilt in their favor. (That is assuming you are not playing with an idiot who takes the dealers bust card...) But, over the past 50 years the markets have returned 12% a year. That has to be a positive sum game. New ideas, new industries, etc. I guess I just do not really get your what your point is. The stock market is not random or a probability game of chance like cards. There is a myriad of outside influences, etc. So, if someone dollar costs into the Dow and earns 12% a year for the last 50 years, why is it so hard to realize that traders can end up with a positive sum game too? At least beat the market average and perhaps surpass it since they are in effect professionals at he market?

To: kaz who wrote (497)	1/31/1999 1:14:00 PM
From: jebj	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 611

Kaz, I have tried - I REALLY have tried - to understand what you are saying. However, I must admit I have failed to do so. >whenever a stock's price increases, a short loses money. The short loses more money than the long wins due to commissions and slippage. Doesn't matter if the market jumps 1000 points. The loser loses more than the winner wins.< Are you saying that no matter the circumstances, the shorts balance out the purchases of a shock? >However, every time the price goes up, somebody loses (the short). Every time it goes down somebody loses (the long).< Your logic is beyond me! HOW can someone that purchases a stock and sell it at a profit be a loser? >The net effect is, once again, losers losing more money than winners are winning.< Only on days when the market closes at it's open or down - over time, it has increased which blows your position. >It's that "over time" that's the problem. That's when probabilities and statistics prove themselves.< It would seem to me that this "over time" condition and history of the market totally destroys your position - both show nothing but an increasing market - - "over time". When the people selling - your "losers" - are doing so at a higher price, on market average, than they purchased for, HOW CAN THEY BE LOSING? >And when the statistics show that 90% of all traders lose money, you'd better damn well know why. And I don't, yet.< Would be interesting to see who and how they arrived at this percentage, however, is that so surprising? Is that not in line with what we see in the "real world" of business startups, etc.? And is it not for the same reasons that these people fail in business - failure to do their homework and gain the knowledge they need to be successful and/or not being willing to "put in the time" to make it successful? >I believe it is appropriate to point out to anyone who is considering trading as a way to support themself that those who are bragging should not be listened to.< As well as those "crying the blues" because they lost, maybe? >If you're going to play the game, at least you should know the rules. I've given my opinion of them- that the deck is stacked seriously against the small trader.< Now here is something we can agree on! One is dealing with "professionals" and one had better be well prepared to do so. jb