I would say around 90% of that 90% are simply gamblers. For this group trading is a respectable form of gambling, people who would never contemplate any other form of gambling. They do it for the rush, the excitement, the dream of an easy life, of making the big score, the intermitent winning and losing is highly addictive. Its quite ironic, they dont even know they are gambling. The markets become a great big casino, they are making 50:50 bets, its actaully worse than 50:50 as human nature trades worse than a random trader, and the brokers/exchanges/and market makers act as the house skiming a bit of every bet.
I'd say that this trend toward less liberty and greater consolidation of power in the hands of the few is going to continue in every technologically advanced country, regardless of the political party in power. The more citizens of any country become categorized and monitored -- whether it be according to their credit, consumption habits, taxes, entertainment tastes, speeding, potential risk factor for crime/terrorism -- the more they become objects of anyone who has the capability of analyzing, archiving, and tailor fitting their actions toward you according to that data. Your awareness and inability to escape this monitoring will have an unconscious effect on your behavior as well. Advertisers, corporations, law enforcement agencies, politicians all would find such data useful. As technology advances, this degree of monitoring will only increase. The more rationalized a society's citizens, the more pacified they are, and the less able they will be to enjoy any degree of liberty that was a reality in the past civilizations.
personally i thank god for many of the idiots who go into the market undercapilized, crap strategy, no risk management and no self control. why? simple. trading is a zero sum game. if i win someone else somewhere in the world has to be on the opposite side of my trade; they have to lose. Might seem harsh but the more idiots there are, the more liquidity there is. and we all love liquidity dont we?
There is a huge disparity between the number of females to number of males on this site I believe, so Hydroblunt's argument doesn't stick anyway. I had exactly the same reaction regarding Stockgirl's comment.It's absolutely true Universal Suffrage Movement fucked up lots of things(there is a good article on the subject on www.mises.org) Last, Swiss are not stupid people and they didn't allow women to vote until 1972-3 or so.And when they finally did it they were forced to do it by (basically) socialist EU I am firmly convinced.
Money. Having a certification just to trade would probably mean everyone would be trading the same way, because everyone took the SAME certification, and answered the SAME test questions. Markets would no longer be random and therefore the "efficient market theory" would be no more. Putting restrictions on who can trade would only hinder our capitalist society, and entrepreneurial spirit.
Why do people trade when the failure rate is so high? Why do people form bands when the likelihood of stardom is almost zero? Why do people marry when divorce rates are 60%? Why do people start restaurants when the failure rate is 90%? Why do people get into politics when they have almost zero chance of becoming a congressman? Why do people join NASA in the hope of becoming an astronaut when they have a very small chance of succeeding? Why do people become actors when the odds are so heavily stacked against them? Why do third world students study at University level when they have almost zero chance of gaining stable employment? Why do people go to vegas and card count for a living? Why do people become drug dealers when 98% end up in jail or dead? Like rapper Ice-T used to say: "Cause you think your smarter than the cops on Miami Vice...right?"
You are absolutely correct. I used to work where I had a lot of contact with retail futures clients. I can assure you most retail futures clients do not have a clue about trading and are pure gamblers. If the market goes up they think you should buy usually near the top. If the market is getting killed they think you should buy as it's cheap and it can't go lower can it? They buy crazy options going out to 07 or 08 because they are only 5c and "cheap". They love the illusion of risk management long option strategies give you (even though 90%+ of long options expire worthless). They have no reasons for their trades, are usually on the wrong side of every trend and never have an exit or risk management (most have never even heard of money management) strategy. They constantly add to losers when the market goes against them thinking it will come back. They trade the most volatile and speculative instruments, such as gold and silver futures/options recently, because they think it's easy money because the ranges are so large not realising they are certain to lose. Almost every trade is entered using arbitrary limit orders at places they guess might be cheap or expensive.