DislikedI missed this the first time through. Your right it wouldn't and thats precisley why it IS zero sum. The value of a stock has nothing to do with the value of the company it is meant to represent. The stock price is purely determined by the market capitalization devided by the number of outstanding shares. A market capitalization is simply the value of all the investor funds that are invested in that stock at that moment in time. As funds move into and out of the stock, the market capitalization changes and the aggregate value of each share will rise or fall respectivly. A stocks market capitalization is akin to the jar of water in my earlier example.Ignored
As for funds affecting the market cap, that is not how it works. Market cap is not affected by individual buying and selling of shares. It's impacted when the shares are perceived as having a higher value and individuals are willing to pay more for them. An individual sale of stock does not remove money from the market cap because somebody else just put the same amount of money in.
DislikedThis being the case, you can only make money by holding a stock while more money is flowing into the stock(or shorting it as money flows out). When you pull it out the aggregate value of each share drops by the amount you removed from the jar.Ignored