I missed out on yesterdays’ shootout and wouldn’t like to change that; I passed through there on my way here, nothing left but spent cartridges. Words have a way of coming back: they also have a way of having two meanings, black & white. If I mention anyone’s name or post, please know it is with respect and I am not standing while typing, but calmly seated. I don’t know many guys doing what we do and I consider myself wiz-major-no-apologies. Let us learn to bear (or bull) with each other, and that we must be united. I don’t think there is two sides to gambling, neither to forex. What might change is the approach to forexing itself and that we just might need to streamline. I would like the boundaries well set for some reasons. If forex is gambling, then it (margin and leveraged markets) is based on false foundation and as such cannot survive a depression, especially this one. If I view it as gambling, then is sure is irresponsible investment of time and I ought to find another profession. Otherwise what will my kid say at school, “when I grow up I wanna be a >< husler, just like daddy? And here I was thinking that we could form a labour union.
Take commodities, I think forex (& leveraged markets) don’t drive up prices of commodities because the retail trader crowd is quite small compared. The graph for a commodity like coffee is the same on chart as on the ground in that industry, i.e. forex charts and other price charts represent market movements as they are. Also we don’t get an altered price chart (e-toro or not) atleast not by that much as 20pips. If these leveraged markets weren’t there, the milkman who rakes in far much than the farmer would still be in business, much ever since without universalized charts the liquidity and thus market information would be less perfect? I think retail forex has an impact on bank balance sheets for overall world finance due to being leveraged, for that purpose of distributing risk & liquidity, sort of like filling for the fluctuation in value of currencies in banking mathematics, and as a satisfaction for need of broader investment options. Maybe someone has knowledge in finance and figures to show that the industry is growing with expanding knowledge and need for it?
What is foreign exchange – forex? What makes 1 pound = 1.54 dollars? It is something to do with interest rates, which are not determined by governments’ centralbanks but by the volume of commodity exchange (trade) between and amongst countries. So the charts are not my broker doodling, nor are they pure random probabs in price but shift in economic fortune & production, caused by shift in social moods. It matters not if I’m leveraged since the charts would still show same market movements. Through these price charts, I am able to access the world trade market, down to the fifth decimal place, better than even the milk broker! That’s exactly why CTFC has no right whatsoever and whatever it does now will be auto-corrected by market later? I also believe those who think someone has to loose long so as they can profit short have it all twisted.
I wouldn’t know the technical meaning of spread-betting, but it sure doesn’t sound good. By placing a trade, say on Gbp/Usd, I am betting the odds that trade volume (financial and commodities markets) between the two countries will swing in my favour. If the casino owner, the banker, the taxman, the jury, the press and the public were to keenly watch me in action, they would have problems understanding what I am doing to earn this much return on capital. It must be because I undertake so much risk on capital consciously or not, albeit emotional sometimes, but with so much precision it puts it apart from gambling. It would take a gambler pure luck to increase his capital by half within a month and replicate it for the next four months straight. It is big business, much better than any gambler could dream of learning; my banker is even willing to invest in my knowledge.
Its no use insisting forex is gambling when it can be shown mathematically why it’s not the same: in terms of the financial markets being fairly predictable in the longer-run, say daily, weekly & monthly, and; in terms of the difference in type of risk & probability between betting for gambling and placing a trade. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been inside a real casino (there’s the underground things in the hood, though) where the tables turn all the time, but in forex one has a fair change, even with the broker throwing spanners at the works in the background. If its true ‘the house’ guys have computers (with a pedal instead of a mouse) timed at 97% linked to the tables, then guys ought to stop going there.
But what if forex is really gambling (by further logic and definition), then it means that it is founded on false economic principle as well and as such cannot stand the test of time and volatility. Which would lead to the questions: by bringing in leverage (& more mathematrics) did the broker banks mess so much with the markets as to remove realism for gaming and thus gambling aspect got introduced; will it end? I still think leverage only elevates the trader (or his playing field) to a higher level without changing the topography (or drift) of the field, i.e. without spinning the tables, such that the trader falls off the high orbit out of his own controllable action, not sudden death like gambling.
I think replacing ‘poker’ for ‘forex’ (I must admit the passage reads the same though) is flawed in that the probability in forex is not rigid while in cards it’s limited to 52 cards and their combinations. In all forms of gambling then, probability is limited to the one-time choice between options unchangeable up until & determined by an event(s). Things like getting caught in the morning while crossing the street, prompting the egg to climb the wall, shaking the wall, or (mode of) killing the chicken. Calling these gambling doesn’t make forex gambling by projection. Most things one can change midway through, including pardoning the chicken till Sunday night, to marinate in the freezer. In gambling, you get jabbed in the teeth for attempting to stop dice mid-air. It could be a horse kick in the same region for trying to halt it mid-course & further human reaction for trying to retrieve your bookings. Seriously, like the house example is not gambling because there would be options for exiting the ownership at all stages of the deal, profitably or otherwise. The housing market is as bad as the loans / mortgages situation, those who owned their homes for real can still sell them for profit, since they didn’t acquire at inflated cost. I can buy a house to live in, or buy it for lease or resale profits. Both fail to fall under gambling.
Forex isn’t gambling; its speculation. Otherwise you don’t wanna risk praying.
