Its actually negative sum when you consider commissions and slippage unless you are some BSD that trades member rates which very few on this forum are.
I assume "it" means the dynamic of how a zero sum is a myth and not true. There are four participants in markets: 1. the potential buyer, 2. the potential seller, 3. the buyer, and the seller. I have the deal with each as a player in the dynamic of the non zero sum market with two considerations. The basic principle in trading that I use is to never affect the operation of the market in any way. So I prevent that by dealing with: 1. the market capacity, and 2. the block size in the market. Thus, part of my trading rules take this into account. For capacity my rule is to never trade more than 10% of the cummulative volume. And I have a hold limit of 100,000 shares determined by my Universe selectiion rules. For block size, I limit the size of my partial fills to orders that are only at the block size going through the current T &S. For stocks the daily volume flow can be divided into 13 portions by using ech half hour. the chart is a catenary that demonstrated the zero sum is not true. This also shows the how the three trading signals are valued as a day proceeds. I posted an example of a maximum exit in the past. It took 4 1/2 hours to execute. As a consequence of the broker not keeping up with the cummulative total, I left 200 K on the table. the stock was in the 28 dollar per share range and I only netted 17 points per share profit. the block size varied but averaged 3K shares over 31 partial fills. I posted this trading technique as a one pagr entitled "Unusual Volume". there are many myths about markets. It is not possible to override these myhs with the facts. People acquire beliefs and they stick with them and get the consequences. I frontrun the smart money in my trading. There are those who monitor my accounts (within requiring my permission). they make mistakes in their classification of me. Then they cite me for wrong doing. These people have a mythical belief about what I do. They do recind their mistaken citations BUT they still do not understand what I do or my trading rules and principles. The zero sum is a myth. and commonly, most people learn it and it is a myth. This belief affects their further progress in the financial industry. sometimes a person can grow intellectually. A way to understand this growth occurring is to print and save a post and then reread it 6 months later. If any growth has occurred the person will self-understand that he has changed. An alternative vantagepoint afforded by ET is that you can read the first post of a member here. then read his recent post. He may have gone from potential tradr ignorance to some better stage of trading knowledge and skills. It takes about 40 days to learn to trade if you learn purposefullly.
Again zero sum against you and your brokerage firm . Your negative is a positive for your brokerage firm . Every (almost) financial transaction is zero sum , why should e-minis be different ???
That's the money quote for me since the 1st part of your post was not that clear for me. I'm a former forex trader. Looking into E-minis. You seem like trading stocks too, that's new to me, I did not understand. By the way with stocks you have pattern day trading rules and you have to start with a bigger capital, not cool psychologically, in forex and futures you don't have this disadvantage. Long story short: could you give me a link for your 40 day trading course? Interested. (I already figured out you are all over the Internet trading boards; ) http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3685779#post3685779
You must sell one of the lll in "purposefullly" to make it a zero sum game. Otherwise is a very negative sum game. Look at all the exchanges and broker's lifestyles. They are built from the "negative" part.