https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/your-money/stock-market-a...
The common case these days is to keep a company private for as long as possible, relying on private investment to grow huge. Only once you've maxed out rapid growth do you go public. Rather than going public being something you do to raise capital and keep growing, it's primarily something you do cash out and dump your shares on the plebs who are left holding the bag on a stalled out or even potentially a dying company. As in the off hour trading, insiders and rich people capture most of the gains.
This is why actively trading to try to beat the market as a part time hustle is purely a suckers game. The game is entirely rigged against retail traders.
Regulation protects retail from making money as much as it protects retail from loosing money.
That's a bizarre claim. If I buy and hold for weeks/months/years, no alpha was sucked from me.
If I day-trade, well, I get what I deserve if I have no edge or don't understand how the market works.
And extended hours trading has minimal liquidity, just because AAPL jumped 10% in after hours doesn't mean someone made billions entering/exiting during this interval, because it's just the market makers repricing minimal volumes.
“Simply holding shares while you sleep will do it. So for buy-and-hold investors, these findings are particularly encouraging: Get your rest, ignore the temptation to trade and you can do just fine.”