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Old 07-19-2005, 05:51 PM
Sniper Sniper is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 704
Default Re: Buy and Hold vs Market Timing

Poker is basically a zero sum game.. for you to win $$$ at the table, someone else at the table must lose $$$.

In the stock market, the market cap of a stock changes (ie the size of the pie changes), for example...

You own 1,000 shares of stock XYZ that has 10 million shares outstanding, and is trading at $10, and therefore a market cap of $100 million. The stock goes up $1, you have made $1,000, collectively all the owners of the stock have made $10 million, and the stock now has a market cap of $110 million.

Yes some people may have held the stock short and thus lost $$, but it is not equal to the number that held it long, therefore its not a zero sum game.
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