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Is trading Forex immoral??

  • Post #41
  • Quote
  • Edited 6:10pm Jun 10, 2007 5:55pm | Edited 6:10pm
Quoting billbss
You are saying, in effect, that if one is successful in his wagers (trades), he is not a gambler.
not what im saying at all. im saying trading is a long term affair, not a one-bet ordeal. so "trading" is not gambling. just like running a casino is not gambling. both are making a series of bets with the odds in their favor.

btw, when i say "trader" or "trading" i am referring to the professionals. as i said earlier, a novice trader CAN be considered a gambler, because they most likely dont have the odds in their favor. but i do not define this business of trading by what is done by the novices. afterall, we dont define the medical profession by what is done by med school students:
Relax and be happy.
Quoting billbss
Also, I do not believe that any trader, no matter how successful in the past, knows he will continue to win.
i beg to differ. i know i will continue to make money trading, just like most professionals do.

Quoting billbss
Every system can break down and every methodology can go bad.
good traders know this and have built adaptability into their approach
Relax and be happy.
everithing is gambling because we dont know the future, we can only predict.

i walk across the street is gambling too because i dont know if i can make it to other side with safe. but i predict i can make it in 10 sec and the road is empty.

the different is only risk .

1. High risk
2. Low risk

Both can be result
a : Big, Good , plus, happy, etc...
or b : Small, Bad , minus, sad, etc...

so i choose Low risk........in trade.
I Deeply Love My Virtual Life In Virtual World , RLC
I was a little bit shocked and then moreso intrigued by the topic "is forex trading moral". I see that the trading vs gambling subject is covered here too.
I would say that trading is no more gambling than challenging someone to a foot race. There is some chance involved but most would base there challenge on the assessment of thier speed abilities vs the abilities of their rival and other factors of relevence. And so goes trading. You have some tangible factors to use to make a reasoned decision. Where gambling, for the most part, is truly a game of chance.

As for being immoral, I think Merlin went the right way with it. Merlin immediately addressed tradings role in society. So for the real answer I guess one would have to ask themselves on an individual basis why and how they trade to discover their personal answer.

For me I don't find my trading to be any real contirbution to society in itself. However, I don't find myself doing any harm either.
With that being said, I do use my good fortune to contribute to society both with time and money. So, in the end, I personally feel that I am a pretty positive contribution to society and hope to learn to contribute even more.

FXO
Profit is where readiness meets Opportunity
My original post was aimed at taking the negative connotation away from the word gambling, which is very hard to do.

Statement of cash flows- It's investing

The buyout wasn't a bad gamble, it was a poor investment decision, that cost 1,000's of jobs.

Tradestation-- It's speculating.

Flop, Turn, River -- It's Gambling


So to answer the original posters question.

It is morally ok for non businesses to trade. You are not gambling, you are speculating with the hope that the stock doesn't tank and the hope it continues to pay dividends. I could find no problem morally or legally with speculating and investing.

That's quite convenient. It's not gambling, but it's speculating and investing.

Therein lies the whole hypocrisy of the situation.
if ; forex=immoral ;then; money is the root of all evil ;else; happy ending

well, traditional people still need the real thing to call a job as a job.
as in hard work, friendship and all good thing with in.

after our action pooled together we don't know we do what to whom and the effect is so small in retail.

atleast there is rule ans system, and if we beak the rule/system then it really is immoral.
so if i buy @ 1.9720 and sell to whoever @ 1.9740. i made 20 pips.

if that person buys from me and sells at 1.9760 then he makes 20 pips.

if a seller now buys at the same price exiting from a short trade way up @ 1.9800 he makes pips too.

so in that case, u everyone makes money

but as to forex being a gamble, it depends on the player himself. gambling usually means using small money hoping to make big bucks.

to me that sounds like 10,000 acc using 10 lots on a trade. THAT IS MORE LIKE GAMBLING as oppose to 0.5 lots
100% of traders are losers. Just that some win more than they lose!
Quoting merlin
btw, when i say "trader" or "trading" i am referring to the professionals. as i said earlier, a novice trader CAN be considered a gambler, because they most likely dont have the odds in their favor. but i do not define this business of trading by what is done by the novices. afterall, we dont define the medical profession by what is done by med school students:
Exactly. Trading without fx education is gambling
100% of traders are losers. Just that some win more than they lose!
Quoting merlin
and the fact that the markets still exist (and thrive) is evidence that trading is indeed moral
To be clear, you don't have to convince me that trading is moral. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING immoral about trading. Having said that, I feel that I have to take you to task on this one statement. The staying power of any given endeavor does not prove the moral nature of the activity itself.

Murder is as old as Cain and Abel and I don't think it's going away anytime soon. But I don't think you'd hear anyone arguing that murder is moral.
taken to the extreme, yes. but murder is illegal. the commodity markets are legal, thriving and growing. and in a global world, the currency markets in particular are becomingly increasingly important. if it was immoral, that would not be the case. this is the "evidence" i was pointing to, sorry i didnt make that more clear
Relax and be happy.
Quoting SD2DFW
As we all have agreed trading is in one form or another gambling. I like to think of forex as a business and in business we can make many gambles or educated decisions. The more knowledgeable you are at something the less of a gamble it is. I have heard many people liken forex to playing poker. And in many ways I agree but here is where I have a problem. In poker when you win or become successful others have to lose because you are taking their money. While you don't ever force them to do anything and they volunteer to play the game many people believe that to be immoral. To succeed at someone else's expense. The same can be applied to forex trading, when I have a winning trade someone else has to be on the other end having a losing trade. Right? But is that the same thing. I tend to believe the two are very different but maybe it is because I want to believe that. I would love to hear everyone's take on it.
SD2...
Trading is in NO WAY gambling....not sure whom you are quoting when stating "as we have all agreed". Traders provide market liquidity, take on risk....for which there is an expected reward ( profit ), and provide price stability in forex as well as all commodity markets. Poker is a game, where one "plays" the hand dealt, dice is gambling, etc.....So have no moral worries.
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
Quoting billbss
Trading is gambling whether you know what you're doing or not.

Definition-
wagering money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods.

Unless you have a 100% win rate, each trade you make has an uncertain outcome.
Wagering and investing are two totally different definitions.....Not sure about anyone else, I don't wager on FX or any other financial instrument.
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
Quoting cre8iveq
Having said that, I will tell you how forex fits into my moral set of values. For a start, you are right, Forex is a zero sum game, which means for you to win, someone has to loose. shadeslay mentioned that this is the case with any business...
I really shouldn't bother with these theoretical discussions, but I always end up gritting my teeth whenever I hear this old, tired, FALSE mantra. Forex is NOT a zero-sum game. Markets in general, are NOT zero-sum games.

Do you believe that the stock market is a zero-sum game? You know that the NYSE has risen by an average of 12% per year since the Great Depression. Sure there have been down years and there are always occasional corrections/recessions/bubbles/depressions. But given enough time, the stock market just keeps going up. If the market is a zero-sum game, how is it possible for the overall market to keep going up over such a ridiculously long period of time? This would be analogous to every team in the NFL now finishing each season with a 90%+ winning percentage. (For comparison, the NFL, like all sports, IS a zero-sum game.)

What about the real estate market? Yes, there are occasional depressions in the real estate market (as there are in ALL markets), but don't most people see real estate as one of the safest, steadiest, long-term investments you can make? How is it that almost EVERY piece of property today is worth far more than it was 100 years ago (or even 10 years ago for that matter). If the real estate market was a zero-sum game, you would be able to buy most pieces of property for the same amount that they cost hundreds of years ago. Obviously, this idea is absurd.

If you win, why does someone else have to lose? If you buy EURUSD and sell it later for 100 pips of profit, does that mean the guy you bought EURUSD from lost 100 pips? Of course not. In fact, he might have been selling it to you because he just made 100 pips of profit on it for himself. And when you sell it, it might continue to go another 100 pips for the next lucky guy to hold that currency.

Anyone who calls a market (ANY market) a zero-sum game is displaying a fundamental lack of knowledge with regard to commerce and market dynamics. What makes prices go up? Buying. What makes prices go down? Selling. When there are more buyers than sellers, the price goes up. That means that EVERYONE holding that currency grows richer.

Why would there be more buyers than sellers? During any short period of time, the balance of buyers vs. sellers can be effected by any number of seemingly random factors. But over the long term, the balance of buyers and sellers is driven by the overall wealth of the players involved. When the overall wealth of a population rises, so does the value of that population's investments. As a society becomes wealthier, that money needs more outlets (stocks, bonds, real estate, currency, etc.) and the aggregate value of those markets rises in lock step. That is why the buy-and-hold investor can make a steady, consistent income in so many different markets for a very long period of time.

People who think of markets as zero-sum games have a sad misunderstanding of money. They see money as a means to screw over someone else. They see commerce as the process by which people are forcefully separated from their money. This is sad.

Money is nothing more than an objective standard of wealth. Another, more subjective, term for wealth is "value". In other words, the more value that I can create for society, the more wealthy I will become. When society as a whole creates more value for everyone (as has happened continuously for hundreds of years), we ALL become wealthier in aggregate.

When you trade, you are providing a service. Think about it. When you are looking to enter a position, you really NEED to buy a given currency at a given price. To have no one to buy from would be a bad situation for a trader. And once you have a position and you want to close it, you really NEED to sell that currency back at a given price. To have no one to sell to would be a bad situation for a trader. In other words, we provide services for each other in that we are providing each other with willing trading partners.

This comes around to the basic argument that Merlin was making - liquidity. Whether you realize it or not, you provide a service to the market, simply by participating in the market. Every player in a market, no matter how small, ultimately provides some type of value to the other players in the market. And when there is an overall demand to get into the market when few people want to get out of the market, the aggregate value of all investments can actually grow. This is NOT a zero-sum game.
Hello bilbss,

Imaging walking into a casino and sitting down at you're favorite fun table, lets say it's the blackjack table and you want to play. The dealer begins to shuffle the cards and just as the cards begin to deal you yell out loud, STOP!

The dealer looks up at you in dismay and asks, "what is the problem sir" and proceed to tell him nothing really, it's just that I would like to stack the deck before we begin our blackjack session, you see I have some extra cards here like these Ace's and Picture cards I need to place into the deck you're using to deal to me and by the way please don't shuffel them before we start!

If you could play the game that way, do you believe it would still be gambeling? Probably not because you will already know how many hands you are going to win verses how many hands you are going to lose before you even start. Now this is not to say there is no element of risk at all, because you still need to know when to dbl down, split pairs, fold against the dealer and get up when you're too tired to think but even though, the cards along with the odds are still stacked on your side. I personally don't think you could call gambling and I doubt you'll find a verifiable Professional trader that would call it gambling either. This is what we do trading, we stack the deck and add cards to the deck and know ahead of time how many wins and how many losses are in our deck at all times. Anybody that treats trading as gambling will certainly lose maybe not today but tomorrow because real gamblers never win and many real traders do.

TJ






Quoting billbss
My church is very much opposed to gambling.

There are a number of members who trade the markets- Including my minister.

I have had several discussions with him about this hypocrisy. (No, I don't use the word "hypocrisy")

Trading is gambling- period.

Traders do provide a service by insuring liquidity- I agree.

Gamblers provide a similar service by keeping the odds offered by the house as low as possible.

Casino gambling is entertainment. Gamblers keep the price of this entertainment down.

If gambling is immoral then so is trading.

I don't think either one of them are immoral.
Charts never lie! (everyone else does) ... now where's that FF Adult lounge
Quoting Bytebodger
This comes around to the basic argument that Merlin was making - liquidity. Whether you realize it or not, you provide a service to the market, simply by participating in the market. Every player in a market, no matter how small, ultimately provides some type of value to the other players in the market. And when there is an overall demand to get into the market when few people want to get out of the market, the aggregate value of all investments can actually grow. This is NOT a zero-sum game.

Amen!
100% of traders are losers. Just that some win more than they lose!
Quoting TraderJoe
Hello bilbss,

Imaging walking into a casino and sitting down at you're favorite fun table, lets say it's the blackjack table and you want to play. The dealer begins to shuffle the cards and just as the cards begin to deal you yell out loud, STOP!

The dealer looks up at you in dismay and asks, "what is the problem sir" and proceed to tell him nothing really, it's just that I would like to stack the deck before we begin our blackjack session, you see I have some extra cards here like these Ace's and Picture cards I need to place into the deck you're using to deal to me and by the way please don't shuffel them before we start!

If you could play the game that way, do you believe it would still be gambeling? Probably not because you will already know how many hands you are going to win verses how many hands you are going to lose before you even start. Now this is not to say there is no element of risk at all, because you still need to know when to dbl down, split pairs, fold against the dealer and get up when you're too tired to think but even though, the cards along with the odds are still stacked on your side. I personally don't think you could call gambling and I doubt you'll find a verifiable Professional trader that would call it gambling either. This is what we do trading, we stack the deck and add cards to the deck and know ahead of time how many wins and how many losses are in our deck at all times. Anybody that treats trading as gambling will certainly lose maybe not today but tomorrow because real gamblers never win and many real traders do.

TJ
If you bet money and the outcome is uncertain, you are gambling.

A ten rich deck does not guarantee you will win at blackjack. It puts the odds in the players favor, but winning is not a certainty. I've had pit bosses tell me they welcomed card counters. They wish they had more of them. As a group, they lose more than regular customers do, because they bet more.


If I bet money on red and the wheel comes up black- I lose. If it comes up red- I win.

That's a gamble.

If I go long GBP/USD and the price goes down- I lose.
If price goes up- I win.

That's also a gamble.

If I punch a clock and work eight hours- I get paid for eight hours.

That's not a gamble.
Quoting FxJarhead
Wagering and investing are two totally different definitions.....Not sure about anyone else, I don't wager on FX or any other financial instrument.
Let's say I'm running a crap table.
I make a rule that the words "bet" and "wager" cannot be used.
Bets have to be called "investments".

Does that mean that it is no longer gambling?
Quoting FxJarhead
SD2...
Traders provide market liquidity, take on risk....for which there is an expected reward ( profit ), and provide price stability in forex as well as all commodity markets. .

Gambling, as defined by the government:

A person engages in gambling when he stakes or risks something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under his control or influence, upon an agreement or understanding that he will receive something of value in the event of a certain outcome"


Trading is not immoral; I agree.
However saying it is not gambling is being intellectually dishonest.


Quoting TraderJoe

This is what we do trading, we stack the deck and add cards to the deck and know ahead of time how many wins and how many losses are in our deck at all times. Anybody that treats trading as gambling will certainly lose maybe not today but tomorrow because real gamblers never win and many real traders do.

TJ

Same thing professional gamblers do..
Doesn't change the fact that it's a gamble.

Real Gamblers only play with the stacked deck you speak of, in the area of their expertise.

Just because the odds are now in your favor, it doesn't turn the situation into a non gambling situation. It turns the situation into one that has positive expected value, which means you are now gambling properly.

There is a difference between sharp gambling and bad gambling. Normally when people use the word gamble, they tend to mean bad gambling.

Unless someone wins 100% of their trades, it's a gamble.
Quoting Prime#
Gambling, as defined by the government:
Quoting Prime#

A person engages in gambling when he stakes or risks something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under his control or influence, upon an agreement or understanding that he will receive something of value in the event of a certain outcome"


Trading is not immoral; I agree.
However saying it is not gambling is being intellectually dishonest.





Same thing professional gamblers do..
Doesn't change the fact that it's a gamble.

Real Gamblers only play with the stacked deck you speak of, in the area of their expertise.

Just because the odds are now in your favor, it doesn't turn the situation into a non gambling situation. It turns the situation into one that has positive expected value, which means you are now gambling properly.

There is a difference between sharp gambling and bad gambling. Normally when people use the word gamble, they tend to mean bad gambling.

Unless someone wins 100% of their trades, it's a gamble.
I agree with you that it's not immoral, however I disagree with your opinion of gambling, or at least the definition of it.

The only problem I have with the definition, is that it casts an extremely wide net. What isn't gambling? In the end is there very much in everday life that's of no value, or 100% gauranteed?

I value my life. According to the definition I "wager" or "gamble" with it everyday I go to work. I expect to go to work, get paid and return home. This isn't a garaunteed outcome. I know that everytime I step out the door. Sure it's low risk, but by definition any job is gambling.

It's vague, we can argue back and forth for days. A line has to be drawn, and most people are probably going to draw it in different places.

For me, I don't consider trading gambling. I don't wager money, I buy currencies in the anticipation they will gain value. It's true somebody is likely losing at least part of that money each trade, however anybody that's ever sold me anything that gains value, is actually losing money the second it's in my possesion and not theirs. I buy real estate in the anticipation it will gain value, art, antiques, is it all gambling?

Is it immoral to buy these things as the sellers are literally losing money they could have had if I didn't buy it? Or is it just a service, part of the system, which in the end is mutually beneficial to everyone?

By definition, it looks like trading is gambling... however by personal interpretation or my beliefs, it's not. It's just something else humans have created to help make our world go round.
Once again.. one of my favorite scenes:

Boy: Mr. Fields, is this a game of chance?

W.C. Fields: Son, not the way I play it.
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