💰 내가 이익 보면 누군가는 손해… 마음 쓰이나요?

No, I don't feel bad for anyone who, out of their own free will, decided to risk money into an endeavor that has low probability of successful.

No, there's more things in life to be sad about that's outside of their/our control. This is within their control (risk management, emotional management) which they should learn and take lesson from every trade decision that they make. This also applies to life, when mistakes should be used as a lesson to avoid pitfall.

I find it hard to empathize with people who fall down, doesn't introspect to do better the next time. The choice is in their hands.

No, the way I see it is if I make money I'm eating the crumbs the big players like hedgefunds are tossing around. I don't feel I'm taking money away from retail traders cause we only count as a very small amount of money that goes into the stock market daily

You have to be a loser at some point to be a winner is my thought process now.

No

This whole idea that everyone on the other side of your trade is a "loser" and you're a "winner" is absolutely ridiculously wrong.

For example, I buy gold. It goes up. Did the person I buy from "lose" against me in a zero sum game?

I don't know -- maybe they sold their position because they have already made the money they wanted. Maybe they're up a WHOLE bunch and just took a profit.

If I short gold and it goes down, then did the person who bought from me before the price goes down LOSE?

Sure they bought it form me, and then the price went down. But what's their time horizon? Maybe they are buying gold and holding for a day... a week... a year (I don't know) and the game they're playing is completely different from mine.

Or maybe it's a spread trader!

Maybe the person you think you just "won" against was actually doing something like buying a bunch of gold / shorting a bunch of silver to pairs trade the Gold/Silver ratio and the game they're playing isn't even in the same universe as you.

You have no idea the who you're buying or selling from. You making a profit doesn't mean you "beat" something unless you were both playing the *exact* same idea / game at the *exact* same time.

**And let's say that was true -- who cares?**

Maybe their strategy has a 20% win rate, but when they win they have a 5:1 r/r. So they expect to lsoe 80% of their trades, but in reality they make 10x more money than you each year.

Again -- you have no idea.

So the idea that all of these people trading the market are all somehow trading YOUR game and that when you win a trade they somehow lost is absurd.

You're under the assumption that retail makes up a majority of market participants but in reality we're a tiny fraction.