Who is losing money on the street ?

Dow Jones, as well as other indexes change the stocks they track over time, so they have a survival bias built in, thus your coclusion is wrong.

 

And one more thing about index futures. Like any other future contract, there is a buyer for every seller. So, excluding the fees, the total gain is equal to the total loss. No ifs or buts. It does not matter what the value of the underlying, the index, is.

 

chess is a zero sum game. stocks? news to me.

 

I disagree. Whether it's a commodities or index futures, it's not necessarily a zero sum gain.

Futures markets started up as an instrument to hedge commodities prices. The buyer or seller could be long/short the commodity in the cash (spot) market. Therefore, the result is not necessarily a zero sum gain. This goes for index futures. They could be hedging stock positions and or options.

 

The discussion is about a FUTURES CONTRACT, not about the underlying, be it a commodity or an index. That is what is traded on the exchange - A CONTRACT. For every contract there is a buyer and a seller. Period.

 

Isn't the thread named "Who is losing money on the street ?"

The original question was posed in a way asking what traders were losing. Where did it specify a FUTURES contract?

Just because there is someone who lost on contract doesn't make him a losing trader. PERIOD.

 

Hedging involves two different games. Hedger is no trader yo.

Bill

 

My answer was to a question, down the road, whether futures trading, is a zero sum game or not. As to who is losing money on the street, that is almost impossible to answer, as all things are interrelated and global.

 

This is the post I was referring to.

 

The short answer to the question "Who is losing money on the street ?" is the bagholders! It should 80% of the people!

This is an excellent thread. I had to explain points related to the main question of this thread in another thread I started. I will extract my answer from there and include it here. That thread is http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=116536&perpage=6&pagenumber=3

Once you ponder on this topic, I think it will help you make money.

The losers pay not only the winning traders, but also investment bankers, brokers, exchanges, fee-based managers, LBOs, IPOs, taxes, etc.

I will cut right to the point: "Is the market a NEGATIVE sum game" once you exclude all who take zero risk such as those types mentioned above!