Time to buy some stocks?

CollegeDude

I'm just starting to read the news on financial websites, stocks really went down all over the world this week what started with China. This is not looking good. I wouldn't want to be a financial advisor or a trader right now even though there are profits to be made. There is always the existing client base to deal with.

Messiah

I feel I should point out that stocks and the stock market are nothing less than glorified gambling. It's gambling for people who don't want to admit to it, and for everyone else, as most people are forced into investing in some shape way or form these days. In any case, there's always a good risk of getting wiped out. The current crash has resulted in thousands losing pensions and what have you. Not to mention that it's one of these things were 9 times out of 10 your profit is directly related to someone else's misery. Hardly what you call honest living.

imelting

its gambling for the average person that doesnt know stuf like charting, tech analysis, trends, indicators etc

and if someone loses their money because they are greedy and think they can get rich fast.. whos really to blame

Simon604

imelting's right, its only gambling if you don't know what you're doing...otherwise its known as "investing"

Messiah

Haha, yeah, keep telling yourselves that.

Pro

you're kinda late now.. the market has gone back up

Malakaiii

But the 6/49 draw is tomorrow night.

shadysimon

CollegeDude is that your car? What kind? Looks like a Camaro...what year and make?

p51dray

Investing isn't really gambling. Gambling is redistribution of wealth via chance between you and the house; it's a zero sum game. Investing generates wealth, so it's not a zero sum game--ignoring things like derivatives I guess :).

Messiah

The defining feature of gambling is that you are wagering money on a uncertain outcome, as such investing is gambling. The fact that it may or may not be a zero sum game is neither here nor there.

Simon604

How can you say that the fact that investing is a zero sum game is irrelevant when game theory is such a widely accepted philosophy which can be applied to so many different facets of life. Defiance based no your personal beliefs is neither here nor there

Steven

True investors still make money when market is bad.. don't tell me its all luck.

Messiah

How can you say that the fact that investing is a zero sum game is irrelevant when game theory is such a widely accepted philosophy which can be applied to so many different facets of life. Defiance based no your personal beliefs is neither here nor there

It's ironic that your lambasting me for my personal beliefs when you bust out with the game theory. Yes, game theory is widely accepted...in the minds of Liberals and neoliberals. It's about as applicable to the real world as life boat ethics, and rests entirely on a series of poorly thought out axioms. It's the mantra of Liberal economists and business students no doubt, you will however not find much support for it in most other fields.

True investors still make money when market is bad.. don't tell me its all luck.

You tell me where I said it was all luck. As any good gambler knows, it isn't all luck. But it's still a game of chance, and even the best bust out occassionally. You can keep telling yourself that it's not chance, but that doesn't really change the facts.

Steven

You tell me where I said it was all luck. As any good gambler knows, it isn't all luck. But it's still a game of chance, and even the best bust out occassionally. You can keep telling yourself that it's not chance, but that doesn't really change the facts.

Since you brought up gambling, you are implying there is luck involved. I do agree on the fact that there is risk involved or rather.. a game of chance. However, the fine line between investing and gambling is that investing involves understanding whereas gambling involves chance. If you do understand how investing works, then it wouldn't be a game of chance.

Malakaiii

There's no such thing as luck. Something is either random, or you can improve your chances of winning through skill. Watch some professional poker. Many of those guys are mathematicians! They don't win because they were 'lucky', they win because the random cards they were dealt allowed them to play the game in a successful way...

imelting

yea its no surprise the same pool of top players always make the final tables, its definately a skill game

Messiah

Since you brought up gambling, you are implying there is luck involved. I do agree on the fact that there is risk involved or rather.. a game of chance. However, the fine line between investing and gambling is that investing involves understanding whereas gambling involves chance. If you do understand how investing works, then it wouldn't be a game of chance.

If that were true, markets would never crash. The top players would never allow it to happen, because they would lose money in the process. They would have it by the sack, as it were. But even they, obviously, do not have that power and even they essentially exist within a specualtive bubble.

There's no such thing as luck. Something is either random, or you can improve your chances of winning through skill. Watch some professional poker. Many of those guys are mathematicians! They don't win because they were 'lucky', they win because the random cards they were dealt allowed them to play the game in a successful way...

You totally miss the point. Regardless of how skilled they are, and skilled they are indeed, they are still guessing. Some guess better than others. Unless you're going to tell me poker player have x-ray vision and can see what card is next, or that investors can predict the future, you really don't have a leg to stand on.

I find it very amusing that ever since the invention of the stock market, there's always been people making exactly these arguments. "No, no...it's skill, not luck! I know how to 'play' the market!" And then China proposes some new tax law and things hit the shit the fan and the first thing the economists say: "Well, we weren't expectig this..."

Stop pretending you're doing anything but playing a game of chance. If there wasn't that fundamental chance aspect to it, that aspect of not knowing, we wouldn't have crashes, you'd all be millionaires.

yea its no surprise the same pool of top players always make the final tables, its definately a skill game

The final tables...on TV. The idea of a marketing ploy never struck you? The idea of recognizable characters? The fact that they usually only invite handful of players to many TV tourneys anyway? Please.

You might as well argue the Oscars truly go to the best films of the year, when they only focus on a handful of Western productions.

Malakaiii

Messiah said:

You totally miss the point. Regardless of how skilled they are, and skilled they are indeed, they are still guessing. Some guess better than others. Unless you're going to tell me poker player have x-ray vision and can see what card is next, or that investors can predict the future, you really don't have a leg to stand on.

My argument was about poker, not the stock market. I don't know anything about the stock market, apart from the fact that I'd rather have REAL money in my pocket... so I will never 'play' it.

There was nothing in what I said about poker players knowing what card is next by x-ray, or magic, or anything. The next card is RANDOM. They aren't "luckier" than the guy beside them that loses.

My point is that no one goes through life with better "luck", than another. It's all frigging random and you've just gotta make do with what you get. Skilled poker players can do well with the cards they receive because they know the odds of getting a certain hand once they've seen specific cards. How it works in the stock market... I don't frigging know. But it could be that your stock in Air Canada drops down to nearly worthless if their planes start falling from the sky... I don't see skill factoring into that.

Messiah

Fair enough, I see what you're getting at. "Luck" may be a bit of a troublesome term, but at the end of the day, even the best poker player gamble quite often. You hinge your bets on that last card on the river. That's what it's all about -- you are betting on an uncertain outcome. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. You may not like it, but when you do get a card there that you had few or slim odds of getting, most people would call that lucky.

And all the same in the stock market, you're not even so much "investing" on anything solid, such as a card coming up, so much as you are investing on the actions of other people. You are guessing at how others will react to certain events. If someone here wants to claim that they can peer into the human soul and thus always make the right move, be my guest. I certainly won't take you seriously. Nor do I think most people would.

But if you're convinced you can predict people's actions, and that the best in the stock market can do the same, I have to ask once again why markets crash and why you're not millionaires?