Ever since I started trading, I couldn't help asking myself the question: What good do daytraders do to society? What's the point of flipping stocks 30, 50 and even 100 times a day, Other than (1) engaging in a minus-sum game (ala Alexander Elder) where 85-90% of players make the other 10-15% rich; and/or (2) supposedly providing liquidity and making the market more efficient; and/or (3) keeping people at Datek, IB, eSignal, etc., employed. What is it that a daytrader does that he/she can be PROUD of? I can be proud of being a firefighter, I can be proud of being a teacher, a truck driver, or even a stayhome mom, but can I be proud of flipping stocks 50 to 100 times a day? (1) doesn't seem to be an economically productive activity, because card counters do the same in casinos. Yet we don't normally consider card-counters as economically productive individuals. (2) could be a potential reason for daytraders to be proud of, but it is quite odd to say that you are proud because you are making the market more liquid and efficient. Anybody can make that argument when buying or selling stuff at eBay or at the local market, i. e., if we believe Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand". However, even if that is the case, daytraders are still not producing anything other than redistributing money. So (2) sounds very dubious to me. (3) may be close, but you can make the same argument for work in casinos and whore houses. Yet we know that a healthy economy cannot depend on these "fluffy industries" as their backbone. People have to make money somewhere else ("work at real jobs") in order to gamble or frequent a whore house. So the argument that daytrading provides jobs is a tenuous one at best. It's still a "fluffy" profession, however you look at it. So what can a daytrader be proud of? Can one be a useful member of the society by churning stocks or futures contracts day after day? Please don't take any offense for those of you who are daytraders--I don't mean to be polemic. It's just something that's been on my mind for a long time. And I want your thoughts on this one. stock.
Why should society reward us for typing numbers at a computer screen day after day? It has no intrinsic worth. Many other jobs that people do have no intrinsic worth either, and many of them are outright destructive. Better to be trading at your computer than doing a lot of other things people do. But making money at this will allow you to make a bigger positive contribution one way or another, if you choose, than you can with just impoverished pride.
Day traders (and all speculators, in fact) absorb risk and make the market more efficient. Decimilization alone has not made spreads tiny...
Nicholas Kaldor, an eminent economist made research about that. It goes far beyond the admitted pundits of speculators assuming risk. Speculation is useful to society only if it is contained but when whole society speculate (not only at individual people but above all at institution level ) well there is a great danger for the whole society to collapse sooner or later.
Economy has nothing to do with moral, and it doesn't have to cope with morality but with efficiency. But generally, when morality is violated, efficiency diminished.
The reason I speculate myself although I think it is an immoral activity is that you can't fight speculation without using its own arm. I want to take money from this immoral temple and give it back to the economy. I don't need to be very rich myself as I don't want to get used to extravagant luxury that's why I will give all the surplus that I wouldn't need. I hope that among traders some are conscious of their activity as being like a thief activity. But Robin Hood was a thief also as he took from the rich to give to the poor. So you can do the same if you win much money.
It hasn't been so long ago that we as individuals were scratching out just enough to provide for our own families. Not everyone owned a bazillion acres on which to farm. Or an auto plant to build cars. They were sweatin' it out. Many still do. Probably most given a world view. Even if not daytrading, what is the societal benefit to buying and selling paper? I doubt there are very many in this business from whatever standpoint, whether broker, fund manager, trader, etc, who go home at the end of the day proud of what they did for society. In fact, I bet only in moments following a glass of wine or beer does the average person take any pride in what their contribution to society has been re: their occupation. Your contribution comes from being honest and fair. You do that... and you have contributed a great amount.
By generating profits for ourselves, we are collectively enriching society through paying taxes, providing a good life for our families, and enabling us to be in a position to be charitable...
Unfortunatly there is much more than morality, stock market has also to do with criminality and terrorism : read for example this story on skolnik site (the one who made arrested dozens corrupted judges ! ) about the BCCI, the terrorist bank that is now officially broken (in fact it continues under other names): http://www.skolnicksreport.com/archives5.html SKOLNICKS ARCHIVES #5 by Sherman H. Skolnick -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So far, the monopoly press has stonewalled a major bribery story. This is about the BANK OF CRIMINALS AND CONSPIRATORS INTERNATIONAL, as some call it, BCCI. The Bank supposedly went under in 1991. A high official of the bank turned over to the BANK OF ENGLAND an important document showing how BCCI bought its way into the U.S. Government by seeking to have the rogue bank spread out beyond its 5 branches in the U.S. Funny thing: the hot paper was kept as an open record for 30 days. An international news group retrieved it and verified that receiving bribes were 108 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 28 U.S. Senators. Three other major news agencies likewise obtained the bribery list from the Bank of England and verified and corroborated its contents. The press lords, however, killed the story. So details were given to us and we pledged never to reveal the names of the helpful journalists, some of whom were fired from their jobs for other reasons. Our story appeared in one conservative publication, SPOTLIGHT, in 1991 and several times thereafter. No sizeable Establishment news group would go near the explosive details in print or on the air. Six Chicago commodities brokers were the vehicles reportedly of the bribery. Such as CapCom and GNP Commodities. CapCom was reportedly at the time part of Telecommunications, Inc., TCI, of Denver and Chicago, the major cable monster. BCCI and TCI jointly own about 16% of Turner Broadcasting [now merged into Time-Warner including Time Magazine and movie honchos] and also own a sizeable hunk of the parent of ABC News, and worked a corrupt group of deals with the bigwigs at CBS. So, the press fakers were afraid to death of the story. Also used as money laundries to bribe both Houses of Congress were the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and the Chicago Stock Exchange[formerly called Midwest Stock Exchange changing its name after a scandal we have written about]. At one time, according to federal government records, the Chicago exchanges were the major giver of gifts---BRIBES---to Congress. So Representatives and Senators would fly into Chicago---supposedly to give a "speech"---and get their "honorarium" and, at the same time, secret trading accounts were opened up for them. As to the secret trading accounts, the commodity records show the "loss" in Chicago BUT A HUGE PROFIT IN THE NAME OF A STRAW MAN OR NOMINEE, at the London end. The profits were withdrawn, so the lawmakers either got the bribes or were being blackmailed with record footprints showing they were paid off. Either way, BCCI had the American Congress "on the hook". Early in 1994, a top former BCCI official agreed to be extradited to the United States to stand trial for massive fraud. So now, the press admits he has direct knowledge of the bribery of U.S. Government officials, both in the legislative branch and the White House, the executive branch. By the way, the press are liars when they say BCCI is defunct. Reportedly continuing their secret dealings is their alter ego and successor Pinnacle Banc Group with the mafia-haven of First National Bank of Cicero as their flagship. [First National Bank of Cicero operates in the long-time Chicago suburban mafia enclave of Cicero, Al Capone Land, dominated by former Vatican Bank chief Bishop Paul Marcinkus, once from Cicero, and wanted back in Italy for crimes with the Vatican Bank jointly with the traditional mafia and the American CIA.] Pinnacle Banc Group was operated by shadowy types from Atlanta, with Georgia having been the hangout of BCCI top honchos. Pinnacle changed their name, to confuse everyone, to Old Kent Bank headquartered in Michigan. Reportedly still all the same gang of criminal enterprises. Some contend all this dirty dealing has been put in place by the Dutch and by the British. The Brits have a long-standing scheme, at least since the War of 1812, to overthrow the U.S. government, explode the U.S. Constitution and exploit the U.S. workforce without health benefits and without decent wages. [When William Rockefeller Clinton was sent to Oxford by the Cecil Rhodes Trust, he took a pledge to that Trust which is sworn to return this Continent to being British puppet colonies. When inaugurated twice as President, Clinton took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution which stands in direct opposition to the Rhodes Trust. Which sworn oath was real and valid?] You heard it by way of my comments: the related, exclusive details, such as the Joseph Andreuccetti Affair. That involved 58.4 million dollars of federal agency funds parked with Household International and Household Bank, in the Chicago area. It has been pending since 1983, to make good the pending claims of Andreuccetti that a group of banks swindled him out of many, many millions of dollars. Fifty million dollars of that parked fund DISAPPEARED and ended up in Little Rock, Arkansas, in an attempt to cover up the 47 million dollar embezzlement of a savings and loan there, for which Bill and Hillary Clinton are subject to federal criminal prosecution, and upon verdict, federal jail. Congressman Dan Burton [R.,Ind.] commented on Clinton making this mysterious 50 million dollars disappear through known dope money laundries in the Caribbean. See: Congressional Record, 5/29/96, pages H-5627-5628. Just another story suppressed by the "Liars and Whores of the Press"---you know who we mean, those with the 50 dollar hairdoes and the nickel heads.