2. Is Trading A Sin?

For a start, let us define the term financial trading. Financial trading is the act of buying and selling securities (stocks, futures, commodities, options, bonds, etc.) with the intent to capture short-term price movements. Unlike investors, traders place emphasis on a short term (a few minutes to a few weeks) dynamics in the marketplace, whilst investors look into a longer term perspective (a few months to a few years). There are two kinds of traders. Day Traders, who enter and exit a position within a day. Day traders do not hold position overnight. There are also Swing Traders (or position trader), who hold a position for one to several days in an effort to profit from the price short term trends. Of course, there are traders that combines day trading and swing trading in their trading strategies. 

Before we attempt to answer the question if God is at work in the financial trading marketplace, we must first address the issue if it is sinful to trade. We must also remember that the discussion at this point is merely about the act of trading and it should not be mixed up with the reason for trading that can lead to sin. We will look into this in the later part of this post. 

So, is financial trading a sin? If we put financial trader in a list all the professions you know and rate them base on the morality value, you would probably find financial traders in the last 25% of the list, with Pastors, doctors or teachers on top of the list.  You may even find it even lower in the list during the 2008 financial crises. So, is it sinful to trade? The perception of trading has always been negative because of the nature of how money is earned. Technically speaking, trading sometimes can be considered as gambling for it is attempting to create capital gain but without creating new wealth. In another words, it is just wealth transfer from a looser to a winner. Like gambling (which we will discuss in the later post), the total new wealth generated between the transaction of the buyer and the seller in the trading market is zero or even negative if we consider brokerage as a cost for the trade. Unlike, say a baker who earns an income through selling the bread that he made, but in the process creates value for the buyer. Thus, new wealth is created. At this point, it looks like a pretty straight forward answer to our question. However, there is much more then just buying & selling of stocks or any financial instruments. 

Therefore, it is important to understand if there is a positive role that a financial trader plays in our economy before we decide if it is a good thing or a bad thing to do. We will look into this with some examples in the next section. 

Romans 14:1-4...Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person's faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.