A "Zynga for real men": troubling blend of FX trading and social gaming • Hacker News Board

Re: A "Zynga for real men": troubling blend of FX trading and social gaming

#11

Post by jarek » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 1:41 AM UTC

Perceval wrote: post #7

byrneseyeview wrote: post #2

This is not a serious complaint. Forex speculators don't cause currency collapses; bad central banking policy does. Forex traders either a) get it wrong, and lose money, or b) get it right and make money while bringing prices in line with reality. Play with eToro for a few minutes some time. It's a very well-done app. Both as a game and as a trading platform, it's a move in the right direction, and it's something wor…

> Forex speculators don't cause currency collapses George Soros played a role in the collapse of the Thai Baht, during the early stages of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. He also personally caused the sudden drop of the British Pound in the 1992 'Black Monday,' which led Britain to leave the European ERM. People on eToto obviously will not cause this kind of damage. But it's incorrect to say that foreign exchange…

It is important to differentiate between the immediate trigger and the underlying cause.

Re: A "Zynga for real men": troubling blend of FX trading and social gaming

#12

Post by jarek » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 1:43 AM UTC

AlexMuir wrote: post #3

I think this is the start of a trend - opening up financial trading to the masses, and making it easy (and fun). With pretty much zero return on cash in the bank, and a general distrust of banks, people are thinking about just doing it themselves. Covestor is another one to watch.

Between this and the rising profile of HF stuff, it's going to be a fun decade.

Re: A "Zynga for real men": troubling blend of FX trading and social gaming

#13

Post by kydoh » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 2:06 AM UTC

Perceval wrote: post #7

byrneseyeview wrote: post #2

This is not a serious complaint. Forex speculators don't cause currency collapses; bad central banking policy does. Forex traders either a) get it wrong, and lose money, or b) get it right and make money while bringing prices in line with reality. Play with eToro for a few minutes some time. It's a very well-done app. Both as a game and as a trading platform, it's a move in the right direction, and it's something wor…

> Forex speculators don't cause currency collapses George Soros played a role in the collapse of the Thai Baht, during the early stages of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. He also personally caused the sudden drop of the British Pound in the 1992 'Black Monday,' which led Britain to leave the European ERM. People on eToto obviously will not cause this kind of damage. But it's incorrect to say that foreign exchange…

Soros has also been on record to say that he wouldn't be able to do the same thing today given the massively increased complexity of the foreign exchange markets - things were different, even just ten years ago.

Re: A "Zynga for real men": troubling blend of FX trading and social gaming

#14

Post by byrneseyeview » Sat, Jul 24, 2010, 2:34 AM UTC

Perceval wrote: post #7

byrneseyeview wrote: post #2

This is not a serious complaint. Forex speculators don't cause currency collapses; bad central banking policy does. Forex traders either a) get it wrong, and lose money, or b) get it right and make money while bringing prices in line with reality. Play with eToro for a few minutes some time. It's a very well-done app. Both as a game and as a trading platform, it's a move in the right direction, and it's something wor…

> Forex speculators don't cause currency collapses George Soros played a role in the collapse of the Thai Baht, during the early stages of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. He also personally caused the sudden drop of the British Pound in the 1992 'Black Monday,' which led Britain to leave the European ERM. People on eToto obviously will not cause this kind of damage. But it's incorrect to say that foreign exchange…

Britain's strategies were unsustainable. Without Forex traders, such strategies would just be used more, leading to more economic distortion. In forex, as in other markets, you can't push prices further away from their real values unless someone else is going to do the same after you.