...consciously or unconsciously, 'they' are trying to bring you down - out of jealousy, insecurity etc. assuming you care about these people and still want them to love you, all you can do is be empathetic to their reactions. but you also need someone to be able to talk to to get the emotions they engender in you off of your chest - otherwise, their efforts may eventually be sucessful. i have been in the same position and it is very difficult. it does also help to find ADDITIONAL friends who understand and who can relate - that gives you more strength to deal with the "crap" coming from elsewhere. good luck DKS
I'm sorry but this is really the basics of stock market, look here for example : http://investorsfriend.com/how_the_market_works.htm The Two Divisions of the Stock Market The Stock Market can be divided into two major divisions. 1.The Primary Market, which could more descriptively be called the Money Raising Market,... 2. The Secondary Market (or Trading Market) is where investors trade their share certificates with each other. This is the "Stock Market" as we commonly know it. This Secondary (Trading) Market is the one that garners almost all of the media attention. When a company sells a share certificate in the Primary (Money Raising) Market, that share might later trade hands many many times in the Secondary (Trading) Market. In theory, the Primary (Money Raising) Market could exist without the Secondary (Trading) Market. In reality the Secondary Market supports and enhances the Primary Market in a number of important ways: The Secondary (Trading) Market provides liquidity so that an investor in the Primary (Money Raising) Market can cash out the investment without having to wait and collect dividends over the indefinite future. Without this liquidity investors would be much more reluctant to invest in the Primary Market and if they did they would want a bigger expected return. The cost of raising money would be much greater. Many companies would never have been able to raise money. In short the technologically advanced world that we live in would have been delayed, perhaps for centuries, if there were no Secondary Market. (All hail the Secondary Market!) The Secondary (Trading) Market provides "price discovery". The fundamental value of any share is the "present value" of the stream of future dividends to be expected from holding that share. The Secondary Market allows investors to vote or bet as to that expected value. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bad News about the Secondary (Trading) Market. Investors in aggregate always lose money in the Secondary (Trading) Market. For every trade that is profitable for one investor by buying a share at what turns out to be a bargain price, an equal and opposite loss is suffered by the investor(s) on the other side of the trade. This is in sharp contrast to the Primary (Money Raising) Market where if the fortunes of a company improve, all investors make more money and no investor loses money as a result of a company becoming more profitable. Also, for every share that is traded, a third party makes a commission. <font color=RED>Thus trading shares is ultimately a negative sum game</font>. Investors in the aggregate must always lose money on the trading aspect of investing. Still, this trading is necessary and supports the Primary (Money Raising) Market. And, <font color=RED>more astute traders will make money at the expense of less astute traders</font>. But all traders should be aware that they are ultimately engaged in a game that is clearly stacked against most of them. The brokers are always taking a commission and traders in the aggregate must always lose. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's why the commonly "Stock Market" which is the secondary market which is speculation doesn't add no value since it is a ZERO SUM GAME (and even negative due to commission, slippage ... and market manipulation). From the economic point of view this secondary market is like a Casino.
"They are trying to bring you down": this is paranoïd . Probably they are jealous but they are not alone just look in this forum... What I see is like what I have already seen in the past: some people because they have some success think that it is due to their talent whereas others think they have been there at the good time and the good place and that it is due to chance and they disdain the guy and the guy doesn't support it . The successful guy can even become infatuated and disdain the others in response. If he has real talent or if chance still favors him, then everything is ok, if things go down again he will lose both: his past success and his friends. This reminds me in particular of a "Trader" who claimed to have been an economist and after claiming that he was successful wasn't there any more after a few years probably due to the reversal of 1999.
If secondary market trading had no value, and was indeed a negative sum game, then no trading would take place between rational agents. Why would someone pay a cost in return for nothing? Being able to immediately liquidate investments at a small discount, or to rapidly deploy capital at a small premium in order to seek investment returns, is clearly something of value. The fact that trading takes place at all means that the costs of trading are viewed by investors as *worth paying* - thus the value of the ability to liquidate or deploy investment capital is viewed by investors as higher than the transactions incurred. Therefore trading and speculation is a *positive* sum game - the external benefits to investors in terms of immediate liquidity are valued by investors at an amount greater than the transaction profits garnered by traders, brokers and speculators. People who claim speculation is a negative sum game are only counting the costs and benefits which are endogenous to the secondary market. They make the basic mistake of not counting the exogenous benefits - the ability of investors to immediately deploy invested capital away from the secondary market into other value-creating activities where risk-adjusted returns may be higher, and only pay a tiny discount for that immediate liquidity. Ironically, if this "immoral" and "useless" speculation were to disappear, the transactions costs to investors would soar and liquidity would disintegrate. Risk and uncertainty would be much higher as a result, thus reducing the price paid for investment assets of all types and raising the cost of capital for business. This would then in turn significantly reduce their profitability, causing jobs and capital spending to be slashed en masse. The net result would be a massive economic recession and drop in living standards and real wages, which would reduce the ability of society to provide basic healthcare to the poor and infirm, thus leading to unnecessary deaths due to illness and inferior healthcare treatment in that section of the population. Harrytrader, why do you want to promote measures that would ensure mass poverty and the deaths of thousands? Perhaps you should rename yourself "GenghisTrader"?
The fact that it is a zero sum game cannot be challenged: it is the very mechanics of "stock Market" itself (restricted to the common sense of secondary market) : the term SECONDARY MARKET is OFFICIAL TERM which just translates that fact and this is really the basics of all financial course if ever you had some at school (can find a mass public course here : http://www.crews.org/curriculum/ex/compsci/8thgrade/stkmkt/week2.htm where it is said : "When stocks are traded in the secondary market, none of the money goes to the company that originally issued it. It goes to the seller, minus a commission for the broker".). A zero sum game concerns AGGREGATE by definition it doesn't concern an INDIVIDUAL. On INDIVIDUAL Basis not everyone is equal, that's the very reason transactions take place: one think that he is smarter than the others either by talent or by chance that is not the question. Since it is a zero sum game some will be right and some will be wrong. Only primary market can add value but the volume of primary is ridiculous compared to secondary market that is to say Speculation is competing with financing economy: what goes to speculation doesn't go for true investment in economy. The same for Bonds Government: what goes to debt financing through Gov doesn't go into private sectors but favor speculation through the mass of interest papers rate. That's why it is not astonishing that socialism favors market's bubble which is fake wealth since it will have to render later: they just use psychological trick to abuse people long time enough so that they think it is "eternal plateau" with wonderful GDP which is just influenced by this same bubble. But because of gravitation law levitation cannot be eternal although psychologically it can last a bit. As for reducing risk, this is just a pretext like politicians like to do for as I have quoted a book on futures market written for practicians : "Some conditions are favorable to the success of a market: - [...] interest rates must stay volatil and the volume of public debt [ie typical of socialist regim !] must be important enough. Even with a low volatility, if it applies to a big volume of titles, this will create a need for risk covering, since the potential loss due to these effects will be important" So Stock Market has interest to generate higher risk so that economic will be obliged to cover and that insurance will just eat the benefits that's the reason we are in deflation in economy - when they are benefits it comes from financial activites for most - and inflation in stock market beacuse benefits are more and more eaten by so called "risk prime". The banks who organise that market have also control on the variable which generates the risk. So it's not like natural risk where you are really obliged to cover because nobody can help it it's rather like Maffia who tell you that they will "protect" you if you pay them or there will be some risk for you they can just generate themselves.
Great I will have some illustrations for "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions of 21th Century for next generation" http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=26238 Some would really benefit to read the classical of all classicals "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions by Charles MacKay" ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext96/ppdel10.txt If Cutten should be able to explain the difference between the secondary market and bonds emission during the Mississipi bubble and our bubble ...
remember also the "restart game" thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13378&perpage=6&pagenumber=5 "On Casino this rare event will happen every 38th day on average, on the MMG game, it will happen every 4/8 or so month and with our financial system it will happen perhaps every 50 or 100 years." Are we approaching the restart game limit of stock market in the few years coming ... ? Latest years are the most paroxysmic bubble since the ones who know want to unload on those who don't know.
my opinion, you worked your butt off to get into this position, as long as you are humble and not an arrogant prick, there is no reason not to enjoy the success that you have earned.
You need to read "Richest Man in Babeloyn". Hopefully you'll change your mindset on what to do with your hard earned money. Instead of spending it on doodads (although some to improve your lifestyle is allowed), you'll be looking for ways to invest it to create a passive income. Get into real estate for example. Don't have time to find good buys, hire a friend to do it for you. If you find a fixer upper and don't have time to fix it up to sell, hire a friend. Give them an option to receive cash for their labors or a cut of the profit. If they want a cut of the profit (which is more than the cash they would have received), give them another choice, upon the sale of the property, do they want all their share now or do they want to re-invest most (if not all) of it? Soon your friends will begin to develop a different mindset. Handouts. Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime.
Oddi.. just an observation, but you had a negative expectation of your friends feelings toward you before you became successful.. so, either your friends always thought bad about you and continue to do so.. or, you are paranoid.. or, perhaps you are afraid that you dont really deserve your success and are projecting those feelings on to your friends.. do you think it might be possible that your friends criticism has even a small measure of truth? sometimes we cannot see our own faults clearly.. but if your friends are absolutely wrong, if they are really friends, why not go to them and tell them that you feel offended.. oh, and for the ones who ask for money.. tell them you "have something for them".. and give them a copy of the first book you read as a trader .. then offer to give advice on getting started.. that will likely be the end of that conversation.. good luck -Qwik