{"id":1691,"date":"2010-03-29T22:43:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T02:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/?p=1691"},"modified":"2020-04-11T07:05:11","modified_gmt":"2020-04-11T11:05:11","slug":"day-trading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/2010\/03\/29\/day-trading\/","title":{"rendered":"Day Trading"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I read an article about day trading<\/a> today. I had thought that day trading was dead, but apparently the get rich quick crowd is still into it. It was interesting to note that every trader they could find to interview had found a way to monetize the activity itself (subscriptions to webcasts or blogs or whatnots) rather than relying on making money on their trading in and of itself. That should tell you something right there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As technolope<\/a> opines: \u201cYou should realize that any day trader that actually makes money day-trading won\u2019t need to sell subscriptions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve never traded stocks for the short term. I used to think that it was a rubes game \u2013 merely dumb. I\u2019m coming to think that it\u2019s immoral. \u201cImmoral,\u201d is a slippery term for someone who doesn\u2019t believe in an externally enforced morality \u2013 but bear with me. I\u2019m going somewhere here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve come to believe that the best way to understand money, from the perspective of a lowly working man, is as frozen time. If \u201ctime is money,\u201d then money is also time. I trade my time for my salary. There is some function of my skills, other people\u2019s desires, the overall economy, and my intrinsic interests that lead to certain rates of exchange for my time. I\u2019ve simplified it down to a point where I don\u2019t mind what I do for a living. I\u2019ve got a pretty unique set of skills \u2013 and within that domain of \u201cthere are only a few people who can do what I do,\u201d I set my price high \u2013 and I turn down work all the time. That tells me that I\u2019m doing it right. If I get hungry, or if I want to impress redmed<\/a> with some sparkly and rare rock \u2013 I find some time efficiencies like packing lunches and taking mass transit \u2013 and I do them over periods of time. Or else I lower my standards a little \u2013 trading time that might be spent on Judo or gardening for more of that \u201cmoney\u201d stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day trading is an example of an activity that has no inherent value to anyone<\/strong>. The only reason that day traders exist is to suck money out of the economy. technolope<\/a> disagrees with me on this \u2013 seeing it as an analog to gambling. However, here\u2019s the difference, the stock market \u2013 tax laws \u2013 and retirement system all encourage American citizens to put a lot of their money into Wall Street. Without the high speed profit seeking \u2013 that made sense. Now, we\u2019re just being pushed up to the casino table whether we want to play or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the core: There is no way to make more time. You have a set amount \u2013 and you spend your life as you choose. Most of us spend most of it doing stuff for other people and a little doing stuff that we want to do. Some of us are lucky and have a relatively rare skill. I\u2019m super lucky. I know that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day trading is stealing other people\u2019s time, out of their retirement accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why, writ large, I favor execution for the wall street fucks who took bonuses of hundreds of millions of dollars after they broke the economy. They stole people\u2019s retirements \u2013 that\u2019s time, not money \u2013 and bought themselves new yachts on their backs. They should be shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read an article about day trading today. I had thought that day trading was dead, but apparently the get rich quick crowd is still into it. It was interesting to note that every trader they could find to interview had found a way to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1692,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions\/1692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}