Not at all. Fundamentally, trading is a positive sum game.
Actual market research directs resources to the most productive companies, helping them grow more quickly and generate positive aggregate value.
Essentially, it's a way to add intelligence and information to the companies that represent the market, to make them more profitable. Specifically, it allows newcomers to grow more quickly if they're more efficent than legacy companies, meaning it's more difficult for the legacy companies to create moats.
Without trading, we might still have IBM at the top of the tech industry, with a massively inefficent organization, low worker salaries and enough market power to keep the competition away, since without a market, startups would need to cover ALL investments using organic profits.
But that's mostly true for medium-long term trading. Short term trading is mostly about speed and finding information or clues faster than anyone else. That part probably generates less net value than it consumes.
Actual market research directs resources to the most productive companies, helping them grow more quickly and generate positive aggregate value.
Essentially, it's a way to add intelligence and information to the companies that represent the market, to make them more profitable. Specifically, it allows newcomers to grow more quickly if they're more efficent than legacy companies, meaning it's more difficult for the legacy companies to create moats.
Without trading, we might still have IBM at the top of the tech industry, with a massively inefficent organization, low worker salaries and enough market power to keep the competition away, since without a market, startups would need to cover ALL investments using organic profits.
But that's mostly true for medium-long term trading. Short term trading is mostly about speed and finding information or clues faster than anyone else. That part probably generates less net value than it consumes.