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Gambling is a zero sum game, your win is anothers loss. Investing is not. When it works there is literally more stuff, goods and services, for everyone! With in

Gambling is a zero sum game, your win is anothers loss. Investing is not. When it works there is literally more stuff, goods and services, for everyone! With investing you can win without others losing! That is how we all have so much more stuff than a century ago without anyone losing, we didn't liberate it from the aristocrats we invested and created it.

chrisgd 6y ago
But there is a buyer and seller in the transaction regardless of whether one person is gambling or investing.
- ptero 6y ago
  And for early trades of a stock, in the analogy of the poster you replied to, the seller is a creator (inventor, builder, etc.) who needs money to build or expand and a buyer provides money for him to do that for part of future profit. That should be a profitable trade for both sides. The secondary market (where people just swap ownership) serves (spikes and manias aside) to reallocate money to more productive companies. This, by the way, is the area that is really suffering under current "only invest in indices because EMH" mantra. My 2c.
- tekkk 6y ago
  True, but when a company sells their stock in for example IPO, it is a mutual goal of yours and theirs to see that the company rises in value.
  - chrisgd 6y ago
    Maybe. Or to buy at 19 and sell the next day at 24
- robjan 6y ago
  That doesn't make it a zero sum game. The transaction is zero sum but not the market. If the market were zero sum, the indices would never change.
- gandalfian 6y ago
  You buy a share, it goes up. You sell it to me. Share goes up more. We have both won. How? Because the company created more stuff and injected it into the equation. We can literally get more out than we put in.
  - chrisgd 6y ago
    Me buying a share from you has no impact on the company. They only benefit if they can sell primary shares. A company’s ability to monetize a rising stock price is time consuming, you can’t decide tomorrow to issue $100m worth of shares and be able to sell them
    - gretch 6y ago
      No, a higher stock price (caused by the demand and transaction volume generated) is valued immediately as compensation. If your stock goes up, employee morale is high and ppl want to stay the rest of their vesting schedule. If the stock goes down you have to compensate employees with more cash. Also, acquisitions are made in stock deals
gher-shyu3i 6y ago
Shorting is also gambling, but it is not a zero sum game. Because there are now three parties bearing the risk of a stock, there are either two "winners" and one "loser", or vice versa.
imutemyteam 6y ago
Investing isnt gambling, trading is. Atleast buying and selling stock because you think it will go up or go down is gambling. Basically you are betting that you will outperform the market rate. If you just want to get the market rate of return by passive investing, it is not gambling. This post is talking about trading.
hntrader 6y ago
Gambling isn't necessarily zero-sum in utility, which is what matters. There's entertainment value for example. It'd be like saying the foreign exchange market is zero sum, because one party loses HKD and another gains USD. This is obviously flawed because utility is being gained by both parties despite being zero sum in dollars.

chrisgd 6y ago

But there is a buyer and seller in the transaction regardless of whether one person is gambling or investing.

ptero 6y ago
And for early trades of a stock, in the analogy of the poster you replied to, the seller is a creator (inventor, builder, etc.) who needs money to build or expand and a buyer provides money for him to do that for part of future profit. That should be a profitable trade for both sides. The secondary market (where people just swap ownership) serves (spikes and manias aside) to reallocate money to more productive companies. This, by the way, is the area that is really suffering under current "only invest in indices because EMH" mantra. My 2c.
tekkk 6y ago
True, but when a company sells their stock in for example IPO, it is a mutual goal of yours and theirs to see that the company rises in value.
- chrisgd 6y ago
  Maybe. Or to buy at 19 and sell the next day at 24
robjan 6y ago
That doesn't make it a zero sum game. The transaction is zero sum but not the market. If the market were zero sum, the indices would never change.
gandalfian 6y ago
You buy a share, it goes up. You sell it to me. Share goes up more. We have both won. How? Because the company created more stuff and injected it into the equation. We can literally get more out than we put in.
- chrisgd 6y ago
  Me buying a share from you has no impact on the company. They only benefit if they can sell primary shares. A company’s ability to monetize a rising stock price is time consuming, you can’t decide tomorrow to issue $100m worth of shares and be able to sell them
  - gretch 6y ago
    No, a higher stock price (caused by the demand and transaction volume generated) is valued immediately as compensation. If your stock goes up, employee morale is high and ppl want to stay the rest of their vesting schedule. If the stock goes down you have to compensate employees with more cash. Also, acquisitions are made in stock deals

gher-shyu3i 6y ago

Shorting is also gambling, but it is not a zero sum game. Because there are now three parties bearing the risk of a stock, there are either two "winners" and one "loser", or vice versa.

imutemyteam 6y ago

Investing isnt gambling, trading is. Atleast buying and selling stock because you think it will go up or go down is gambling. Basically you are betting that you will outperform the market rate. If you just want to get the market rate of return by passive investing, it is not gambling. This post is talking about trading.

hntrader 6y ago

Gambling isn't necessarily zero-sum in utility, which is what matters. There's entertainment value for example. It'd be like saying the foreign exchange market is zero sum, because one party loses HKD and another gains USD. This is obviously flawed because utility is being gained by both parties despite being zero sum in dollars.