At 11:46 AM 5/28/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Anderson R wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 27 May 1999, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>> Because in general the more people trade, the worse they do. Why any
>>> nonprofessional would want to trade at 6 AM or 11 PM is beyond me.
>>> Delusions of grandeur, I guess.
>>
>>Doug,
>> If you get a chance to revisit this once, please help me
>>understand the basis for your comment. I saw Paul Kangas last night
>>with the head of NASDAQ say the traders would be hindered by the lack of
>>information at those hours, and the transaction would not be posted until
>>the next day but the growing Calif market which is active after the east
>>closes is driving this change. But, beyond that, from an amatuer
>>economist it does seem 24 hour trading could be accomplished with little
>>problem and actually assist the process, assuming one was in agreement
>>with the game.
>
>At the micro level, performance tends to deteriorate with trading activity
>- as I said, the more you trade the worse you do. That's true of both
>institutional and individual investors. It's great for brokers and market
>makers, though, who earn on the churn. At the macro level, what do we have
>to show for the explosion in financial activity? The increase in financial
>turnover over the last 20 years has come along with a deterioration in
>general economic performance almost everywhere, whether measured by GDP
>growth or living standards of the median-and-below human. I'm not saying
>that increased financial turnover is the cause of deteriorating performance
>- though it sure screwed Asia over the last few years - it could just as
>well be a symptom. But there's no evidence that making it easier to trade
>around the clock will do any good for anyone but the house, which is always
>the case with casinos.
>
>Doug
>