[kibwen]

I wouldn't quite go that far. The fact that markets can remain irrational longer than participants can remain solvent means that participants with deeper pockets have an inherent advantage, even if they have less information. How quickly a random walk will take you to zero depends on how far above the baseline you start.

[binyu]

> participants with deeper pockets have an inherent advantage

I do think they have deeper pockets because they are more informed/sophisticated players, so the whole argument is kind of circular.

[compiler-guy]

If I inherit a billion dollars tomorrow, I will have zero additional information and be no more sophisticated than I am today. But I will have deeper pockets than any retail investor and will be able to withstand market irrationality longer than them.

[binyu]

If you are completely ignorant about markets, deep pocketed and inclined to risk, chances are you are going to lose it all.

[compiler-guy]

Indeed. But that doesn't invalidate the point that deeper-pockets is not equivalent to a more sophisticated or better investor.

[binyu]

Someone who inherits a fortune and trades it on the stock market is an extremely unlikely circumstance.

[compiler-guy]

But we aren’t talking probability. Your claim was that deeper pockets means you are more sophisticated. That simply isn’t true. The inheritance argument is just one example to show why it isn’t. People make large amounts of money all the time in one field or another, but that doesn’t make them sophisticated investors.

[kibwen]

Not sure if you've seen the price of silver, but those spoons are going for a pretty penny these days.