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From: rbutterworth@orchid.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: market crash
Message-ID: <11436@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 13:51:30 EST
Article-I.D.: orchid.11436
Posted: Thu Oct 29 13:51:30 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Oct-87 10:47:36 EST
References: <167@bby-bc.UUCP> <1060@looking.UUCP> <3962@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Distribution: can
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29

For every share that was dumped to avoid a loss,
there was another share bought in the expectation of gain.

Does anyone know how many shares actually changed hands
as a fraction of the total number of shares in existence?
I'm sure it must be a very small fraction.

Even more important, how many of those shares that were traded
were "real" shares?  There were a lot of people out there selling
shares that they didn't own in the morning and then buying them
back in the afternoon at a large profit.

Most share holders owned .000001% of some company before the "crash"
and they still owned .000001% of that company after.
The real value of that company, and hence those shares,
hasn't changed in the least.

Unfortunately, most normal people see the inflated prices that
speculators have produced and think their stock is actually worth
that much.  Then, when these artificial prices fall, they think
they have lost a lot of money.

The only real change in value was for those people that speculate
and buy and sell quite frequently.  They are the only ones that
should have been affected by this.

The whole thing should be considered a joke.
Unfortunately, no one is laughing (except the commission collectors
who's self-appointed function is to encourage such speculation).