The more I read about the stock market the more it resembles a complex gambling scheme to me. My view of the stock-market limited to high-school economics is the straightforward "here's how you own part of a company and how you can support a company you want", and for companies "if you do good work, people will give you more money to expand and innovate" and I think at the base level that is there, but there is this whole side-show with the gambling that now totally shadows the original intent.
Well, more abstractly, anything you ever do is a gamble. Getting higher education? You're gambling that it'll pay off better than just working in a job that doesn't require a degree. Putting your savings in a bank account? You're gambling that the interest rate will be higher than inflation and also higher than the risk-adjusted returns in any other investment type. Buying a house instead of renting? You're gambling that it'll be cheaper and more convenient than renting, after capital costs and price changes. Renting instead of buying? The opposite. Any choice you make, including not making any choice, has consequences.
Putting your money in the stock market? You're gambling that the risk-adjusted returns from the stock market is higher than that of a bank account. Performing stock or option trading according to some strategy? You're betting that you're smarter than your counterparties. Trading any type of paper you don't understand? That's more akin to playing the lotto.
Can I just say that this is an incredibly good comment?
Seriously, between the finite time that one has to live and the decisions you have to make everyday, I think any notion of "satbility" is at best, an illusion. Only change is constant.
