In trading physical things, two individuals trade two items for profits because when the items change hands, they can bring value to both individuals. Why do people trade in financial markets? If it is only to exchange risk and reward, from a rational point of view, what is risk to one side is a reward to the other. Feel free to share your thoughts.
Trading is the only respectable profession known to man. If you are not a trader you are an employee, just one step above slave. According the United States Federal Government, half my family was considered to be "Farmers." Good for them, because they all were exempt from the WWII draft. Plus they got extra fuel rations. But if you sat with them during the winter, all they talked about was how much they were going to gamble on cattle and corn. (Nobody grew beans back then.) According to FDR they were farmers, but people who knew them considered them to be crazy gamblers. Especially my grandmother, who finally got relieved that she wouldn't lose the farm when grandpa and his sons sold the whole herd in Chicago during the war. Only to come back with a full load of heifers and start it all back up again.
Then why do so many people have disdain and disrespect for traders? Huge diff between slaves and employees- slaves don't get paid.
Fair enough, but what would you say about those who pay your check? If they are in your situation, who pays them? If one repeats the chain of who pays who, and why they trade, would the answer remain the same?
Who specifically pays my check? I'm responsible for my paycheck. There are experienced traders with a variety of methods for attaining their profit goals and plenty of opportunity for all of them to profit. If you sell me some CL contracts for 94.51 because you bought them for 93.15 and they just broke a 60-min range high by a tick and ran smack into the upper channel of the range and you believe price will retrace at least 25% of that range before going higher and you want to lock in profits on half your position, and I bought them from you because I believe I can sell them for at least 94.66 over the next few minutes without risking more than .06 to find out, we're both savvy business people who have experience in moving inventory at a profit more often than not.