The Stock Market Is Like a Casino (And That's a Good Thing)

Editor's note: Rounding out this week's series of guest essays here at Empire Financial Daily, Alex Green – the chief investment strategist at The Oxford Club – is back to share a way to take advantage of the market's similarity to a casino... After a recent round of golf at The Legacy Club in Longwood, […] Not rendering correctly? View this e-mail as a web page [here](. [Empire Financial Daily Weekend] Editor's note: Rounding out this week's series of guest essays here at Empire Financial Daily, Alex Green – the chief investment strategist at The Oxford Club – is back to share a way to take advantage of the market's similarity to a casino... --------------------------------------------------------------- The Stock Market Is Like a Casino (And That's a Good Thing) By Alex Green --------------------------------------------------------------- [Whitney Tilson: 'U.S. food and gas prices to plummet from THIS...']( According to former hedge fund manager and the man dubbed "The Prophet" by CNBC... Food and gas prices could soon plummet in the U.S. thanks to one unexpected global event. While at the same time, investors could see an enormous profit opportunity for certain stocks. [Click here now for all the details](. --------------------------------------------------------------- After a recent round of golf at The Legacy Club in Longwood, Florida, a playing partner proceeded to tell the group in the 19th Hole why he never invested in stocks... "The stock market is nothing but a casino," he explained. "Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. But everyone is just placing their bets and gambling." The other two players in the foursome tried to explain to him why this explanation was wide of the mark. But – as a dyed-in-the-wool real estate investor – he was having none of it. The stock market scared him. And he was convinced that success or failure was just a matter of being lucky... or unlucky. This opinion is fairly common among people with no stock market experience – or with one or two bad experiences. (Surely you've known individuals who voiced much the same view.) I generally concede that, in some ways, the stock market is like a casino, especially in the very short term... Stock price movements from hour to hour – and even day to day – are largely random. It is only over longer periods that an underlying order and logic take hold. Companies' shares move up only to the extent that their earnings – their profits – move higher. (And the reverse, of course, is also true.) Look back through history and you will not find a single example of a company that increased its earnings quarter after quarter and year after year without the stock tagging along, no matter whether we were in a bull market, a bear market or something in between. That is why Warren Buffett's mentor Benjamin Graham famously remarked that in the short term, the market is a voting machine. But in the long run, it is a weighing machine. And what it weighs is corporate profits. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended Link: [Make $1,000s Per Week Without Options or Crypto]( This obscure technique beat the world's largest hedge fund at its own game... with gains of $1,600, $2,700, and $3,100 in a little as five days. [Click here for the live demo](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Aside from the inscrutability of stock movements in the very short term, there is another way that equity investing resembles a casino... And this analysis is based on my own experience. I have never been much of a gambler. And what small amounts I did gamble away as a young man I recognized intuitively as a dead loss. I never fell prey to the fatal conceit that if I gambled long enough or smartly enough – as if there were such a thing as "intelligent gambling" – I would eventually win it all back... and then some. I simply took a good look around the casino. While there were hundreds of people laughing and drinking and smiling (and frowning) at the tables... there was no line whatsoever at the cashier's window. Clearly, I wasn't the only one taking my lumps. According to the American Gaming Association, gambling in the U.S. reached a record high last year as commercial casinos and online betting apps reaped more than $60 billion in gambling revenues. That broke the previous record of $53 billion set in 2021, increasing about 14% year over year. These gamblers not only aren't striking it rich. They are paying for all those glittering towers. And I don't want to be one of them. The smart move is to be a casino owner. Not a casino gambler. Few of us have the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars necessary to open and run a fabulous casino, of course. Yet that is no obstacle. You need only own a few shares of a leading gaming company. For example, consider that since the market bottom in March 2009, Century Casinos (CNTY) is up 397%... Penn Entertainment (PENN) is up 507%... MGM Resorts (MGM) is up 1,864%... and Las Vegas Sands (LVS) is up 3,870%. So yes, the stock market is like a casino. Just be sure you're the owner... not the gambler. Regards, Alex Green Editor's note: If you haven't yet seen the joint presentation with Alex and Empire Financial Research founder Whitney Tilson, don't delay... In it, they explain why they believe a historic unveiling in the coming months in Orlando, Florida could reshape this year's market... and cause a particular type of "hyperscale" stock to rise 1,000% or more from today's low prices. Get the full story – and the exact steps to take advantage – by [clicking here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- If someone forwarded you this e-mail and you would like to be added to the Empire Financial Daily e-mail list to receive e-mails like this every weekday, simply [sign up here](. © 2023 Empire Financial Research. All rights reserved. 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