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Finance is sort of a unique beast in that the field is inherently negative-sum. The profits you take home are always going to be profits somebody else isn't getting.

If you're doing like, real work, solving problems in your domain actually adds value, and so the profits you get are from the value you provide.



If you're algo trading then yes, which is what the person you're replying to is talking about.

But "finance" is very broad and covers very real and valuable work like making loans and insurance - be careful not to be too broad in your condemnation.


You're right, I spoke too broadly there.


This is an overly simplistic view of algo trading. It ignores things like market services, the very real value of liquidity, and so on.

Also ignores capital gains - and small market moves are the very mechanism by which capital formation happens.


Stock is only one part of capital formation, and of that, algorithmic trading is only incidental to the sale of those stocks.

Put another way - capital was accrued long before we had a stock market, and even longer before we had computers deciding which stocks to sell or buy.




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