&gt; The market needs people that have the capital to lose consistently year after year...<p>Not necessarily true. The sellers miss out on gain, but they don&#x27;t necessarily need to book a loss. Unrealized gains are not equivalent to losses. I believe what you&#x27;re thinking about are derivatives (which are zero-sum, and for every unit of profit booked by one entity, there is a unit of loss booked by another entity).<p>Equities are not zero-sum, the companies behind them produce very real value.