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Ehhh you get into meta when it comes to options and futures, but I would argue they still aren't zero sum. I mean, you could argue almost everything money wise can be looked at as zero sum. If a VC buys a 10% stake in company ABC for $1 million the trade looks like: VC: -$1,000,000, +10% equity (worth $1,000,000) Net = $0 ABC: +$1,000,000, -10% equity (worth $1,000,000) Net = $0 Now let's say ABC doubles their valuation. Now the trade looks like: VC: -$1,000,000, +10% equity (worth $2,000,000) Net = +$1,000,000 ABC: +$1,000,000, -10% equity (worth $2,000,000) Net = -$1,000,000 Obviously the $1,000,000 helped ABC double their valuation, which means that the transaction was not zero sum. Same could be said about all investments and to a lesser extent, options and futures. You can't ignore the context of the trades such as using put options to hedge a long position, for example. |