doc idiot wrote:
Maser wrote:This seems a difficult comment, can you unpack it
If the point of investing is a game with the object of winning the most money, then those with the biggest gains are the superior players, sure.
I think for most people, investing is not a game, and where one ranks on the relative winnings scale has only so much meaning. That means to each of us exactly what we want it to mean. Maybe to some of us that’s the only important metric.
That’s my best mas-esque answer. You’re welcome!
Not sure how you took from my comment the suggestion that it a game. I was even careful to parse out gamesmanship as a factor, and as de minimis.
And regarding the idea of "investment", playing the markets, isn't. An investment is an exercise where you impart a bit of yourself into something. This can happen if you own/run a business, etc. That is not what happens in the public markets. You are buying and selling marketable securities, that is all. It is one giant trading platform, where people wrongly equate longer time frames to investment. Not even your money is going to the company, as it would were you to make a loan. You don't contribute to the company's business activities. You decide nothing. You participate in nothing. You have no claim on any part of the business assets. You are in no way invested.
You might project that you have invested the business with your hopes, dreams, aspirations, motivations, etc., but you haven't. You have invested your securities purchase/gamble with those qualities, not the underlying businesses. You purchase a bundle of rights, and you hope that it goes well, and that you will not encounter an onerous transaction cost to vindicate those rights--but you are not in control of, and you have no influence over, the businesses, because you have "invested" nothing of yourself in such businesses.
EVERYBODY'S point in the markets is gain, as measured by conversion to currency. Because you have no specific claim over business assets, at the end of the day all "wealth" contained in securities is measured in currency units. There are those who experience more gain than others, and they are by definition superior market players. Again, smoothness of return is just the timeframe argument rehashed. Yes there are many different metrics of success in this world, but when the rubber hits the road, market success is measured in $.
This does not suggest that playing the markets is for most primarily a frivolity. With increasing public control and involvement, participating in the markets has evolved into a practical necessity for many (even some with "guaranteed government pensions"), and far from a frivolity. However, creative outlets have been stymied, and people have been "forced" into the markets in part by increasing barriers to entry for other things they might want to do with their money, like start a business. The #1 cause of new business failure is under-capitalization, and the quickest-rising costs are regulatory burdens. There used to be many things one could do with money rather than the equity markets, and some still do go by way of a RE portfolio, or the purchase and management of other productive assets (in other words, a business).
No longer. The casino has become deadly serious, and for that reason a certain amount of rigging is now required. You can still enjoy games of chance in the casino, but you can also just go the steady route, the only guarantee of any return stability being guarantees made by government--which have always proven to have been unreliable, given a certain timeframe.