I’ve always believed trading stocks to be a socially acceptable form of gambling — still a “bad thing”. The average trader does worse than buy & hold. I should know, I built an HFT firm.
Recently, while messing around on Robinhood for fun, I’ve changed my mind about this. Trading may be a Good Thing.
In a casino, you have no edge — in the long run, you lose money. In the markets, you may not do better than buy & hold but you can still reliably make money: just make sure you stay long the market, on average.
As long as your trading leaves you generally owning stocks, you get to have a little fun and make money at the same time. Sure, it may not be the rational or optimal thing to do. But, it’s often better than the alternatives.
