Slashdot Mirror
NASDAQ Trading Halted Due To "Technical Issue"
barlevg writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that trading was halted midday Thursday due to an as-yet unnamed technical issue. Says SEC spokesperson John Nester, 'We are monitoring the situation and in are close contact with the exchanges.'"
Seriously. Is there any real need (beyond that for connected players to be able skim money off the top) for anyone to be able to sell and buy stock (or commodities) in a tiny fraction of a second, instead of say, once every fifteen minutes or even longer?
The stock market is a construct by high-class insecure gambling addicts. It sounds much better to say "I trade stocks" than "I frequent the casino".
Just as most casino goers will claim that they do it for fun, or to relax, stock traders will claim that they're "investing".
Both are gambling - the difference is only one of class divides.
I'm not even sure what the stock market *does*. I don't think many people do. Including the people who run it. The higher echelons of finance are so many layers of abstraction away from what the common people deal with, it's hard to fit the two ends together.
This isn't about some mysterious "higher echelons of finance ". The majority of Americans own stock, directly or though 401k or pension plans. Before the 2008 crash is was nearly 2/3s. And yet many people are in the same boat as you.
I think this is a terrible problem with education in America. People are afraid of the market, don't understand it, don't want to understand it, but that's due to simple lack of education. And it's important to know the basics, since it will likely affect your standard of living in retirement.
Just like there's a certain minimum amount you need to know about how cars work before you can drive safely - not all that much, but there are a several hours about it in most drivers ed classes - there's a certain minimum amount you need to know about how markets and investments work. Where's the public education for that? Are we so intent on class warfare that we'll cut off our nose to spite our face here?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm not even sure what the stock market *does*. I don't think many people do. Including the people who run it. The higher echelons of finance are so many layers of abstraction away from what the common people deal with, it's hard to fit the two ends together.
This isn't about some mysterious "higher echelons of finance ". The majority of Americans own stock, directly or though 401k or pension plans. Before the 2008 crash is was nearly 2/3s. And yet many people are in the same boat as you.
I think this is a terrible problem with education in America. People are afraid of the market, don't understand it, don't want to understand it, but that's due to simple lack of education. And it's important to know the basics, since it will likely affect your standard of living in retirement.
Just like there's a certain minimum amount you need to know about how cars work before you can drive safely - not all that much, but there are a several hours about it in most drivers ed classes - there's a certain minimum amount you need to know about how markets and investments work. Where's the public education for that? Are we so intent on class warfare that we'll cut off our nose to spite our face here?
Yeah, that was before people discovered. Now everyone is doing it and these companies can not grow anymore and no more investors will come in to boost the shareprice.
Shit most do not even pay dividends anymore! That is a terrible buy if you ask me. That is like me selling you a vacation home where I keep all the rent money and you get nothing. Would you agree to such a deal even after you buy it?! Hell no. ... but don't worry Johhny down the street just may buy it so you can still get rich ... wink wink.
Now it is Gold and bitcoins. As more people buy them the value goes up. Yes, this is gambling. The more someone learns about the stock market the more they will see how rich computer trading high frequency traders steal your money and how overvalued some of these companies are. In the old days more stocks meant these companies could use the cash to buy more factories to make more money and you would see it every quarter as a solid 30 year investment.
Today it is traded in 1/10000th of a second by scammers and the traders still pay themselves pre financial deregulation like it is their money for compensation rather than yours. You are getting rob unless you know what the hell you are doing.
There are other investments that pay more today and unless these companies can grow why invest. The pre-IPO new guys starting out you say? Well the investors get the same shares for 1/4th the price before it hits the market. It is inflated on opening day. You simply can not win these hustlers.
http://saveie6.com/
No, derivatives (such as mortgage backed securities) and options are constructs by high-class insecure gambling addicts. While you can gamble on the stock market, but most people (and institutions) use it for investment, or long-term bets. One notable difference between a casino and the stock market is that in the stock market, the odds are in the your favor.
"I think this is a terrible problem with education in America. People are afraid of the market, don't understand it, don't want to understand it, but that's due to simple lack of education. And it's important to know the basics, since it will likely affect your standard of living in retirement."
I agree, but I can also see the other side of it. Way back before technology made it possible to do day trading or HFT, it was actually a market that most educated people could get their heads around. And if you're a Buffett-style "value investor" who picks good companies and hangs onto stocks for a long time, a lot of the noise is still filtered out. But, I do think that online trading, instant access to information and cheap trades contribute to volatility. Volatility filters back to the average investor in the form of their account balance wildly swinging up and down for reasons that aren't 100% clear to them.
Some examples:
Investment buy decision process, old school: "Hmm, the WSJ basically reprinted an IBM press release showing new and exciting products. I think I will buy 100 shares of the company and see where it goes. I will call my broker in the morning and pay $100 in fees, then I will own and hold these shares to see if they increase in value."
Investment buy decision process, new school: "OMG, my trading platform's tech sector chart just blinked a brighter shade of green, looks like IBM is in play. Click, buy 100 shares IBM, 85 shares CSCO, 62 shares MSFT, 90 shares RHAT all for $7.95 or free if I trade hundreds of times a month."
Investment sell decision process, old school: "Hmm. the WSJ article I just read says IBM isn't keeping up with competitors. I've made a bit of money on this over the last 10 years, time to sell. Let's call the broker in the morning and maybe I'll do some research on where else to put the profits."
Investment sell decision process, new school: "OMG, IBM missed their quarterly earnings by one cent. Wow, they suck. Sell sell sell! Twitter, "OMG, #IBM is #toast, get out now!!!!!' Stock message boards, "Smart money is in Cisco." Facebook: "Selling my IBM shares now, suggest you do the same." Wow, IBM is down 25% for the day, I wonder why?
If I were running a company that didn't need access to capital that only the stock market would bring, I'd never go public even if it meant Easy Street for me forever. Once a company does that, they will NEVER have control over anything they do.
I think this is a terrible problem with education in America. People are afraid of the market, don't understand it, don't want to understand it, but that's due to simple lack of education.
It's not due to lack of education, but due to the simple fact that the stock market really is scary, and that's exacerbated by the fact that people have less faith in our basic financial institutions than they used to.
The stock market is scary because it can swing up and down wildly. The only sound advice for most people (myself included) is that over the long term (decades) it almost always has a better yield than other investments. Buy some low cost index stocks and hang on to them. If you think you can do better than that, you better make sure it's not just vanity, or a few lucky outcomes feeding your confirmation bias. Very few people can beat the market with pick and choose. Timing? Even Warren Buffett avoids that. He's a long term value investor, but really doing that well takes serious research (that's what he and Charlie do all day).
It doesn't help that people have lost faith in our basic financial institutions either. I don't think that rationally applies as much to the stock market. HFT raises a lot of eyebrows (likely for good reason) but for any long term investment its effect is very small. Banks (investment and depository), insurance companies, etc. are another story. There is no secret that major banks and insurance companies got bailed out by the Treasury, and even more, the Federal Reserve. The capitalists, who preach free markets and rugged individualism, got saved by nanny government. To add insult to injury, they were largely being saved from problems that they had created themselves. Both Bush and Obama bent over backwards not to prosecute criminal activity (see William K. Black for details). Meanwhile everybody else lost their houses and their jobs, and the job situation still ain't looking too good. While that isn't, at least strictly speaking, the stock market, is it any wonder that people don't trust financial markets and think the game is rigged.
Are we so intent on class warfare
"Class warfare" gets my vote for the most hackneyed and ultimately meaningless term of the century. What exactly is "class warfare"? From it's reflexive overuse, I can only infer that it means that any discussion of economic conflicts of interest between people of different wealth and income levels should be forbidden as crass, petty, uninformed, counter-productive, and most importantly, something that people who use the term "class warfare" don't want to discuss.
One notable difference between a casino and the stock market is that in the stock market, the odds are in the your favor.
Not any more, for 3 reasons:
1. There is now the equivalent of the House on the stock markets, in the form a few banks who control the majority of assets.
2. The largest investment banks can and do rig almost everything, from International interest rates to aluminum commodity pricing to municipal bonds.
3. HFT combined with premiums paid for slightly early releases of information mean that by the time an ordinary investor has heard about a serious problem in one of their holdings, the damage is already done because someone else found out and reacted to it 2 seconds earlier. In other words, the true price of your assets is based on information you can't see.
I am officially gone from