“Possibility” but not an “actuality” since share prices are typically based on the feelings of major investors and not necessarily what’s actually happening within a company.
Having a diversified portfolio has a positive expected return. Gambling has a negative expected return. There’s a long history of stock investing resulting in positive average returns, and there’s a long history of slots resulting in negative average returns.
If you’re buying good companies (or buying an index) and holding long-term, you are expected to get positive returns, therefore it’s not gambling. Any investment can have a negative return, it’s the mathematical expectation that separates it from gambling.
It’s possible for the stock market only to grow because it externalizes costs (environmental damage, health of workers, etc.), and if that’s the case, we need to see if society is actually proceeding in a positive direction as a whole (I generally believe this to be the case), but consider for a moment that the economic windfall experienced by many western nations was (and still is in many ways, think banana plantations) largely made possible by the subjugation of imperialized nations. In this case, was the economic windfall experienced by the imperial powers and their trade partners actually a good for society as a tide that rose all boats, or not?
If we fail to consider the biggest losers of the stock market, those that cannot even necessarily participate, it becomes much closer to gambling at the very least. I’m not here to have an argument about whether or not capitalism and the stock market and such things are actually good or bad for society as a whole, just that it’s easy to ignore the biggest losers of the system by virtue of the fact that they don’t necessarily even invest in the first place. In this case, the universe is the casino, and humanity are the gamblers, as compared to just the stock market being the casino and the investors the gamblers.
Not that your comment is wrong necessarily just that there’s more ways of thinking about it.
Stock prices at least have the possibility of being based on something substantial other than dice rolls. Derivatives, not so sure.
“Possibility” but not an “actuality” since share prices are typically based on the feelings of major investors and not necessarily what’s actually happening within a company.
Having a diversified portfolio has a positive expected return. Gambling has a negative expected return. There’s a long history of stock investing resulting in positive average returns, and there’s a long history of slots resulting in negative average returns.
If you’re buying good companies (or buying an index) and holding long-term, you are expected to get positive returns, therefore it’s not gambling. Any investment can have a negative return, it’s the mathematical expectation that separates it from gambling.
It’s possible for the stock market only to grow because it externalizes costs (environmental damage, health of workers, etc.), and if that’s the case, we need to see if society is actually proceeding in a positive direction as a whole (I generally believe this to be the case), but consider for a moment that the economic windfall experienced by many western nations was (and still is in many ways, think banana plantations) largely made possible by the subjugation of imperialized nations. In this case, was the economic windfall experienced by the imperial powers and their trade partners actually a good for society as a tide that rose all boats, or not?
If we fail to consider the biggest losers of the stock market, those that cannot even necessarily participate, it becomes much closer to gambling at the very least. I’m not here to have an argument about whether or not capitalism and the stock market and such things are actually good or bad for society as a whole, just that it’s easy to ignore the biggest losers of the system by virtue of the fact that they don’t necessarily even invest in the first place. In this case, the universe is the casino, and humanity are the gamblers, as compared to just the stock market being the casino and the investors the gamblers.
Not that your comment is wrong necessarily just that there’s more ways of thinking about it.
It’s damn near a roll of the dice of what is going to come out of a CEOs mouth during an earnings call…