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There should be a 1penny tax on trading of stocks. This nonsense has gotten out of hand. Many startups look for money though venture capital, and not the stock

There should be a 1penny tax on trading of stocks. This nonsense has gotten out of hand. Many startups look for money though venture capital, and not the stock market, because the stock market is so predatory. People like Elon Musk have gotten in trouble with the stock market for simple things, like thinking out-loud. I'm pretty sure he hates the stock market, and only by law was he forced to sell stocks. The stock market has transformed many times. Currently large institutional investors like pension plans buy safe stocks. Originally in the 19th century it mostly a way to buy government bonds. In the 1920s buying stocks was opened up to the 'everyman', a person could buy one share rather cheaply. Then came the depression. In the 1950s the stock-market wasn't that important, economy was doing good. Starting in the 1970s traders started inventing exotic financial tools, to make the stock-market less boring. That's how we got into several crashes, most spectacularly 2008.

themagician 8y ago
I found your last paragraph pretty interesting. Had not thought of this. Thank you.
astazangasta 8y ago
>People like Elon Musk have gotten in trouble with the stock market for simple things, like thinking out-loud. I'm pretty sure he hates the stock market, and only by law was he forced to sell stocks. Since this is how his company has been kept afloat for the last decade I'm pretty sure he doesn't hate the stock market, he just hates the agencies that regulate it. You're alone in this thread, but no one here has given any real defense of HFT other than "providing liquidity", which is sheer garbage in a world where we have giant speculative bubbles forming and bursting and taking out huge portions of the economy all the time - it requires a real fanatic devotion to efficient markets to be trying to race against the speed of light. This is bunk; prices are just wrong anyway, and markets don't need to be that good as a result. What we do need is less financialization of the economy. Transaction tax all the way.
mruts 8y ago
Well then you'll be happy to hear that the era of exotic derivatives is mostly over. People nowadays just want to trade standard products (vanilla options, stocks, futures, etc) very quickly. And the reason startups like VC vs public markets is because they can easily get money on the secondary markets. Going public is a lot of work and comes with a lot of rules. The only reason people did it during the dotcom boom was there was a lot less secondary market capital sloshing around. It wasn't because the stock markets were somehow less "predatory" (whatever that means) back then.

themagician 8y ago

I found your last paragraph pretty interesting. Had not thought of this. Thank you.

astazangasta 8y ago

>People like Elon Musk have gotten in trouble with the stock market for simple things, like thinking out-loud. I'm pretty sure he hates the stock market, and only by law was he forced to sell stocks. Since this is how his company has been kept afloat for the last decade I'm pretty sure he doesn't hate the stock market, he just hates the agencies that regulate it. You're alone in this thread, but no one here has given any real defense of HFT other than "providing liquidity", which is sheer garbage in a world where we have giant speculative bubbles forming and bursting and taking out huge portions of the economy all the time - it requires a real fanatic devotion to efficient markets to be trying to race against the speed of light. This is bunk; prices are just wrong anyway, and markets don't need to be that good as a result. What we do need is less financialization of the economy. Transaction tax all the way.

mruts 8y ago

Well then you'll be happy to hear that the era of exotic derivatives is mostly over. People nowadays just want to trade standard products (vanilla options, stocks, futures, etc) very quickly. And the reason startups like VC vs public markets is because they can easily get money on the secondary markets. Going public is a lot of work and comes with a lot of rules. The only reason people did it during the dotcom boom was there was a lot less secondary market capital sloshing around. It wasn't because the stock markets were somehow less "predatory" (whatever that means) back then.