Shares and currencies... In theory, analysts and professional traders incorperate everything they know into bids for shares, so that the current share price 'p

Shares and currencies... In theory, analysts and professional traders incorperate everything they know into bids for shares, so that the current share price 'prices in' everything publicly known about a share at the current time. I quite often talk to people who have a share portfolio, and buy mining shares because they think international demand for mining is going to rise. But the share price already reflects that because pro investors and analysts though to it first. So really, when you buy a share, unless you have some extra information, you are making a bet on variations due to things no one knows at the time - it's simply a gamble. Don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible idea to buy shares - if the economy grows, the FTSE grows with it. If you buy luxury goods manufacturers and insolvency companies, you can hedge. But if you, as a private individual, think you can make money day trading (in your lunch break) against the highest paid experts in the world, well you are kinda nuts. A friend put together a database of tick data for every currency pair in the world, for a spread of different brokers. He examined the data, and found that at last in the 3 hour / day interval, it appeared statistically random. You can bet on a random variable if you like, sometimes you will make money. I prefer to put what little money I have in passive funds, and hope it beats inflation^. ^That said, I'm cashed out and 400% ahead following this bitcoin bubble. lol