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I'm skeptical that the presence of buy and hold investors is the missing ingredient. Even if 15% of investors are speculators, the price can still swing drasti

I'm skeptical that the presence of buy and hold investors is the missing ingredient. Even if 15% of investors are speculators, the price can still swing drastically, since price is a function of supply and demand, and the charts we're seeing are not volume-weighted. Market price stability is a function of the uniformity of supply and demand over time. Buy and hold investors already own the stock so their preferences are not reflected in short term supply/demand uniformity (price stability). What we're seeing in China is a lack of uniformity of views on the future price, and thus rapid fluctuations in supply/demand uniformity over time. Government instability plays into that tremendously.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
Price is a function of faith in the future. What we're seeing is a lack of faith that many are finding disturbing.
- grandalf 11y ago
  > Price is a function of faith in the future. That is a fairly unfalsifiable statement, and it is trivially true for nearly anything, b/c we all make all decisions today based on the faith/expectation that we will be alive tomorrow. The notion that tomorrow will be substantially different from today makes nearly all planning useless, so it's trivial that all planning hinges on some notion of faith in the future. But price itself is only a function of supply and demand. If I am selling bread and it's nearly time for me to go home and the bread will be stale tomorrow, I might offer the remaining loaves to the last few customers at a discount if I expect it not to sell otherwise, etc. Supply vs demand. Charted on a graph the price would take a nose dive at the end of the day. If a short term investor feels that his position will not improve, it makes sense to liquidate. The more symmetrical market participants' views are, the more the price will change as a result of trading (why would someone sell when they expected the price to go up?. This illustrates the adage that one person's junk is another person's treasure) To be logical we must consider would-be buyers and would-be sellers of the shares. Only in the rather peculiar case of significantly asymmetrical views of the future price will the price remain stable with lots of shares changing hands.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago

Price is a function of faith in the future. What we're seeing is a lack of faith that many are finding disturbing.

grandalf 11y ago
> Price is a function of faith in the future. That is a fairly unfalsifiable statement, and it is trivially true for nearly anything, b/c we all make all decisions today based on the faith/expectation that we will be alive tomorrow. The notion that tomorrow will be substantially different from today makes nearly all planning useless, so it's trivial that all planning hinges on some notion of faith in the future. But price itself is only a function of supply and demand. If I am selling bread and it's nearly time for me to go home and the bread will be stale tomorrow, I might offer the remaining loaves to the last few customers at a discount if I expect it not to sell otherwise, etc. Supply vs demand. Charted on a graph the price would take a nose dive at the end of the day. If a short term investor feels that his position will not improve, it makes sense to liquidate. The more symmetrical market participants' views are, the more the price will change as a result of trading (why would someone sell when they expected the price to go up?. This illustrates the adage that one person's junk is another person's treasure) To be logical we must consider would-be buyers and would-be sellers of the shares. Only in the rather peculiar case of significantly asymmetrical views of the future price will the price remain stable with lots of shares changing hands.