>When you adjust for the value actually created by a company, the stock market is a zero sum game. Not really. For example: if I am a terminal cancer patient t

>When you adjust for the value actually created by a company, the stock market is a zero sum game. Not really. For example: if I am a terminal cancer patient that wants liquidity now to do the things I want to do before I die, and you are a pension fund that only really cares about the return thirty years from now, I can trade the stock that I have to you in exchange for money I can spend right now at a price both of us agree on and (this is the important bit) BOTH of us gain from the transaction.