I’m actually kinda confused by this. Are we not rooting for them in some respect? As long as I make money too and my retirement account grows what do I care if they take some off the top? The returns I get are way better than I could get on my own.
You should care because for long term investing, an actively managed fund is very likely to underperform the market. The vast majority of hedge fund managers aren't doing anything that you couldn't do yourself, i.e. pick a few stocks out of the S&P 500 and hope that they outperform the market.
> The returns I get are way better than I could get on my own.
Look into index based ETFs. They simply track an index so your performance is equal to the market's, so no handpicking stocks or gambling. They are traded like stocks, so you can probably buy them with your broker. The best part about them is that they have almost no fees - the most popular ETFs cost 0.10-0.20% per year.
If you're American and believe that the American stock market will continue to outperform the rest of the world, then an ETF like SPY (tracks the S&P 500) would be a good bet. If you'd like something more diversified, have a look at funds tracking indices like the MSCI World or FTSE All-World.
Another issue in Europe is that the accumulating ETFs (more tax efficient in most countries) tracking the Developed index have low liquidity.
1. https://research.ftserussell.com/Analytics/Factsheets/Home/D...
We're not just talking about some Wall Street traders losing some money (who can likely afford to), but regular people may suddenly be finding they can't afford to retire as soon as they had planned.