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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mama Bear who wrote (55031)	4/7/1999 5:33:00 PM
From: BGR	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

Barb, I am a s/w engineer and amateur chess player. Market makers make most of their money from spreads. Brokerage houses tag on commissions as well. If you are consistently making money by doing short term trades, more power to you. But, since short term trading is essentially a zero sum game before spread and commission, and a negative sum game afterwards, if you are winning someone must be losing. (If you wonder why short term trading is a zero sum game, it must be possible to increase the net worth of the entire world's equity market through short term trading sans any economic advancement and additions. Which is not stable.) Someone must have lost big money in PAIR too. On the average (I do understand that average is something most on this thread claim to be above, but nevertheless) it is a wash before spreads and commissions, and after that the market makers and brokerage houses are getting rich. -BGR.