On 11/26/06, Perelman, Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I suspect that what they meant was that a good deal of their own income depended on Christmas bonuses, which in turn depend upon how much profit they produce for their employer. Of course, all this nonsense is a zero-sum game.
Is this stricltly true i.e. the financial markets being a zero-sum game? Forgetting for the moment the nonsense about different utility curves etc, the options-futures markets as I understand it is almost entirely for the big boys i.e. the Morgan Stanleys, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan-Chase and their like. In the last five years I believe *ALL* of these companies have been making massive trading profits - so who is losing money? An Amarath here and a Refco here surely does not account for all those massive Wall St profits and bonuses? What are we missing? My favorite theory is that there is money creation going on in the futures market i.e. it is a positive sum game with a massive barrier to entry. Any comments? -raghu.
