[SEQ RERUN] Buy Now or Forever Hold Your Peace
post by MinibearRex · 2012-01-09T05:45:50.070Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 5 commentsToday's post, Buy Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace was originally published on 04 February 2008 . A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
If you really think that your reasoning is superior to that of prediction markets, there is free money available to you right now. If you aren't picking it up, you clearly don't really believe that you can beat the markets.
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/995/seq_rerun_extensions_and_intensions/, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
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comment by Solvent · 2012-01-09T05:48:45.538Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
My father used to be a stockbroker, and he says that people would always come in to him certain that a particular stock would fall or something. He would always say "Sure, if you really believe that, then this particular derivative will make you rich." And people never took him up on it.
Replies from: DanielLC↑ comment by DanielLC · 2012-01-09T06:38:23.114Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
To my knowledge, it's much harder to make money on knowing that a stock will fall than knowing it will rise. You have to find someone who's willing to let you shortsell it to them and all that.
Did they say rise half the time?
Replies from: wedrifid, shminux↑ comment by wedrifid · 2012-01-09T07:40:08.200Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
To my knowledge, it's much harder to make money on knowing that a stock will fall than knowing it will rise. You have to find someone who's willing to let you shortsell it to them and all that.
Which seems to be why Solvent's father - a stockbroker - pointed them in the direction of a particular derivative.