<< Automated trading is a tax on transactions, not a lubricant. That is a good analogy. There is a long-term trend to the stock market, but in the short term i

<< Automated trading is a tax on transactions, not a lubricant. That is a good analogy. There is a long-term trend to the stock market, but in the short term it is a zero-sum game. If a group manage to profit an average of 1% on every trade, everyone else's profits go down 1%. If you buy and hold for 5 years, this works out to 0.2%/year, so you may not care - but you should.