Minor quibble. That is not accurate.
You see teenagers buying hotdogs with a credit card. Visa and Mastercard go public, you buy shares, it goes up, up, up.
There's no zero sum here and people can spot special values without deep analysis.
Minor quibble. That is not accurate.
You see teenagers buying hotdogs with a credit card. Visa and Mastercard go public, you buy shares, it goes up, up, up.
There's no zero sum here and people can spot special values without deep analysis.
(But even if trading is zero-sum in a strict monetary sense, different risk preferences, desire to liquidate positions in order to buy something you value more, etc. mean that it's not zero-sum in a utility sense.)
There are, however, externalities that make it less costly for Visa to sell lower than the theoretical max. Happy investors are easier to manage, market momentum is strong, etc.
(Brexit nonwithstanding)
...actually that is a hole in my argument.
Okay: if you can find a cultural trend that you earnestly believe thatFinance people are out of touch with, then it makes sense to do arbitrage there.