181–190 of 419 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And thus, bitcoin. A stock that's guaranteed to provide no dividends, do no buy-backs, or deliver any value - aside from the ability to sell it to the next fool for an even greater value.
A 'stock' that has no regulatory environment, either. But that's part of the draw.
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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A 'stock' that has no regulatory environment, either. But that's part of the draw.
Digital tulips, only tulip farming didn't consume the same amount of electricity as a small, South American country every year.
It's an artificial distinction. If you are wealthy, you have access to opportunities with good odds, call it trading and tell everyone about it so they know you are a sophisticated and wise investor. If you are poor, you have few good options and generally wouldn't brag about your gambling. If you do, you are labelled irresponsible.
> If you are poor, you have few good options and generally wouldn't brag about your gambling. If you do, you are labelled irresponsible. And rightly so. For two main reasons - demonstrably negative expected value of the bets (like in casino floor games or the lottery) - relatively high proportion of total net worth wagered I'm very comfortable with labeling this as irresponsible (regardless of levels of wealth). It's…
i.e. everything a wealthy person does thanks to wealth is traditionally promoted as a sign of their inherent worth, and everything a poor person does out of the conditions of poverty is interpreted as a sign of their fundamental roughness. This is especially true in a Protestant context of wealth being an indication of divine favor.
Working out EV is easy for casino table games, relatively easy for poker and extremely difficult for stocks trading.
I don't believe EV is easier to estimate in poker than trading. You need to estimate hand range and the consequences of actions later in the hand. It's extremely complicated.
Around 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to listen to a member of Nasdaq top management talk about the stock market. It's all a _tiny_ bit blurry, being a long time ago, but I remember how he talked about three different perspectives for investing in stock: First, the "company perspective". An investor would buy stock in a company they believed in. Maybe they had good products, or good management, or something else…
I recently read a blog post by Martin Shkreli who wrote that he was really bad at trading and doesn't participate. It takes very unique individual to be successful at trading and he is not one of them. He used the analogy where you can think of trading like a professional sport. Could you get into the Octagon with a UFC Fighter and expect to win because that is what you're doing when you try to trade.
My take away is if a person like Shkreli doesn't stand a chance, then how would I....
understanding that the distinction between “gambling” and “this other respected thing” is purely cultural is even more important
you are facing people, around the world, who do not need to rationalize a difference for any cultural, personal, religious, legal or future legal reason. even their community does not care
yet you do, you are already disadvantaged by spending any cycles on this
Around 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to listen to a member of Nasdaq top management talk about the stock market. It's all a _tiny_ bit blurry, being a long time ago, but I remember how he talked about three different perspectives for investing in stock: First, the "company perspective". An investor would buy stock in a company they believed in. Maybe they had good products, or good management, or something else…
> An investor would not really care about the stock, but only about the behavior of other investors. This sounds like the idea of a Keynesian Beauty Contest ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest ) "It is not a case of choosing those [faces] that, to the best of one's judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those that average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third deg…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tend to agree. Trading stocks is essentially gambling but almost worse. The odds are rigged but you don’t know by whom abs how much. It’s a game of skill, except not entirely. The house always wins except there are multiple houses and you can lose to all of them. I think investing is a different beast: that is going long on a company, industry, or the market in general. You reasonably know that the market will over…
Stick a 1% tax on all share buys and use to reduce income tax for working people, or just issue it as a cheque at the end of the year that people can invest. That doesn’t harm investing
Not true. The cost will be largely passed on from market maker to investor through bid offer spread.
"Gambling occurs when you have a poor understanding of risk, resulting in either (1) negative expected value bets, or (2) poor bet sizing that leads to ruin." Not so. Top poker players are still gambling, but have an excellent understanding of the risks. Their skill doesn't turn them into investors. Gambling is taking a high risk bet. Whether the expected pay off is high enough to justify the risk and whether you can…
understanding that the distinction between “gambling” and “this other respected thing” is purely cultural is even more important
you are facing people, around the world, who do not need to rationalize a difference for any cultural, personal, religious, legal or future legal reason. even their community does not care
yet you do, you are already disadvantaged by spending any cycles on this