This has been bothering me for days
Oct. 11th, 2009 03:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteLa and I began buying stock on the employee purchase plan the second I got my job at Apple. Two hundred bucks was automatically taken out of every paycheck I received, and placed in a fund which was then used to purchase stock. We began doing that because we had good feelings about how the company was going to perform over a long haul - years at least.
A week or so ago I was sitting at my desk thinking about this, and about the hatchet-job that the deregulated loan and stock markets have just done on the economy, and a question popped into my head. I have been unable to find a good answer for it so far. The question is this:
Why is ANYONE allowed to purchase stock in a company for ANY amount of time LESS than a year?
We have a stock market system that is basically a gambling house, stuffed with cons and shills and day-traders, clawing at public perception for the sake of a one-week purchase window, doing nothing but sucking money out of the system. This is almost entirely because they can buy stock and sell it in a matter of days, even minutes. That is not enough time for a company's real-world fortunes to grow or shrink; not even enough time for the brokers involved to get their damned facts straight. It makes absolutely no sense at all. I want to know why stock purchases aren't always, ALWAYS locked in for a year at least, allowing the company you purchased stock from to actually do something with the money, and if you want to sell earlier than that you should be allowed to receive ONLY the money you put back in, or less.
There are early-withdrawal penalties on all kinds of financial transactions. Why the hell aren't there any on stock trading?
A week or so ago I was sitting at my desk thinking about this, and about the hatchet-job that the deregulated loan and stock markets have just done on the economy, and a question popped into my head. I have been unable to find a good answer for it so far. The question is this:
Why is ANYONE allowed to purchase stock in a company for ANY amount of time LESS than a year?
We have a stock market system that is basically a gambling house, stuffed with cons and shills and day-traders, clawing at public perception for the sake of a one-week purchase window, doing nothing but sucking money out of the system. This is almost entirely because they can buy stock and sell it in a matter of days, even minutes. That is not enough time for a company's real-world fortunes to grow or shrink; not even enough time for the brokers involved to get their damned facts straight. It makes absolutely no sense at all. I want to know why stock purchases aren't always, ALWAYS locked in for a year at least, allowing the company you purchased stock from to actually do something with the money, and if you want to sell earlier than that you should be allowed to receive ONLY the money you put back in, or less.
There are early-withdrawal penalties on all kinds of financial transactions. Why the hell aren't there any on stock trading?
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 03:32 pm (UTC)I buy stock in a company that builds products using steel. Two months later, the government imposes a tariff on imported steel, driving up the price of that company's products and thus reducing demand for them. I shouldn't be allowed to sell that stock?
no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 08:19 pm (UTC)I've placed $200.00 on Chumwhopper to win at the derby. Halfway through the crucial race, Chumwhopper trips and falls. I should be allowed to sell back my ticket before the race ends?
no subject
Date: 2009-10-13 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-13 08:40 am (UTC)After a few rounds of this, they form cabals and erect gigantic storefronts, concealing the race behind smoke machines and big neon signs, so they can buy big batches of losing tickets and sell them to disoriented spectators. They even dress up as official derby spokesmen and pipe the noise of galloping horses out over PA systems, so no one knows who is in charge or when the race has started.
Their interference is so great that the derby is no longer about horse racing at all, but instead a huge brawl of fans and hired thugs lost in smoke. Somewhere there may be horses racing, but no one can say for sure...
no subject
Date: 2009-10-13 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-13 08:06 pm (UTC)