Just a game
As stockmarkets collapse around the Gulf bringing despair, fury and no small amount of schadenfreude, it's heartening to see that they're still trying to encourage the young'uns to take up this halal form of gambling:
AL AIN - Ebtehal Alawthali, a student of the Al Ain Women's College (AAWC), has won the 2006 Online Stock Game Competition at the Dubai Financial Market (DFM).
Students were given a virtual million dirhams togamble invest with. It probably felt no less real than the hundreds of millions of dirhams taken out in bankloans by so many Gulf nationals to have a flutter with. After all, that wasn't their money either, was it? It cameth from a bank vault and to a bank vault it shall not return, for most of it is gone forever.
Ebtehal added: "I wish real life was a game so I could make Dh18 million in a month."
Don't we all.
AL AIN - Ebtehal Alawthali, a student of the Al Ain Women's College (AAWC), has won the 2006 Online Stock Game Competition at the Dubai Financial Market (DFM).
Students were given a virtual million dirhams to
Ebtehal added: "I wish real life was a game so I could make Dh18 million in a month."
Don't we all.
Labels: money
18 Comments:
pfft. I took 10,000$ on blogshares and turned it into over 80 million $ in the space of two or so months.
I win.
SD, speaking about "halal" and "haram" is a big issue that I don't think you are fully aware of. I really find it ridiculous when someone wrongly describes what's in my house, and post his / her personal opinion to the others, as a fact...
Mazar - I'm not quite sure what relevance your observation has to the stockmarkets, but to anwer you anyway: not everyone realises the need for antiperspirant deodorant.
It's quite probable that it's healthier NOT to wear a (pore-blocking) anti perspirant, but the fact of the matter is that only such a deodorant really stops odour in the majority of people. Even those with underactive sweat glands and very little personal smell will end up stinking in the sweaty heat of the souq.
Also: all forms of deodorant wear off in the heat and humidity. They need to be reapplied every few hours to be fully effective.
hmaarouf: I have no idea what's in your house, or even where you live, but I am entitled to my opinion that from everything I have learnt about Islamic finance and shariah compliant investments, taking a short term, speculative, high risk approach to investment is very much NOT in the spirit of halalness. One doesn't have to be a muslim to have an view on this.
Mazar,
If they weren't paid such shitty salaries (and sometimes not at all) they too would be able to afford that Dhs 20 deodorant like the rest of us...
Simple!
All we got to do is make sure that they get higher salaries and we could then save our nostrils...
Lets start with that 15% increase Dubai Municipality promised them a year ago....
Hehehe Mohammad ElZubeir.
I think we Muslims can start from things that are categorically and explicitly mentioned as HARAM/HALAL in the Qur'an. It's sad how lightly we take these words these days.
SD, I can't believe you gave a full explanation on body odor! But, I guess it links with the stock market's trends in a way - they both STINK!
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To inverst or not to invest. Check the Islamic ruling here.
http://63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=eng&ds=qa&lv=browse&QR=8590&dgn=4
Any investment in the stock market for a short term has the following charecteristics:
1. You bought it because you thought its price is going to go up in a short time
2. You sell it when you think the price can not go up any further (in turn selling it to a larger fool who thinks it will still go up)
When you buy something from a long term perspective, do you still think the same?
Haram or halal?
A close friend of mine (in the US) had a similar blog entry related to stocks. It's nothing new that people like to make quick and easy money. Most people who invest in stocks indulging in quick buy-sell routines claim that they are good with their foresight on market movement. However, I feel most people miss a few tricks in their quest for quick profits over short term investments. For example, notice the increasing price of gold. Anyone who had such "foresight" would have rather invested in gold than company shares!
Excuse the expletives in my friend's post, but I think he does allude to a good point of investing in cars rather than stocks:
Man, I fucked up. Back in the day I had a lot of money. A lot of fucking money. I had big mofo dollars. And you know what I did? I fucking invested that shit. Fast forward 5 years. I am down 22,000 dollars. Y'know what my opportunity cost was? A Ferrari. A fucking ferrari.! U know how few ppl. have a fuckin Ferari in college? Very fucking few! Goddamn it! I would have lost aybe only 20% depreciation-wise on a Ferrari what I lost in the stock market. And guess what? You can't drive a fucking stock at 150+ MPH. Great! Now my roommate is fucking his brand spanking new girlfriend of one week right across my room and I have to listen to her scream. Guess what? He bought a great new car. And thats what he gets for it. I could have had 2 dozen of those if I had bought a Ferrair but I didn't. I was mature and sensible. I bought stocks. I can't fuck stocks!
Now I drive a shit car and I'm next to married. I lost 22,000 dollars and today I see one of my stocks in which I put in $5,000 has become worth 5 cents. Woe is me. I should have lived young.
moosejamal.blogspot.com
SecretDubai, do you have more information about why speculation in the stock market is considered to be gambling?
From what I understand, when you buy shares in a company as an investment, and you essentially become a part owner in the company, intending to hold onto the stock for a while, that's OK.
But someone approached my husband a while ago about currency trading, where you might buy and sell currency several times in a day, and I thought that would be like speculation, which to my understanding is considered gambling and is haram.
Anyway, I've noticed that many ordinary citizens put money in the stock market here, but they don't understand the risks at all. Often they don't know anything about the company, but they know that it rose in value by x percent last year, and so they assume that it will keep doing the same.
In the U.S., you have to get the prospectus and many warnings that past performance is no guarantee of future performance, etc., and even then people lose money and get cheated, etc. But here, they don't even get the warnings.
Hi SecretDubai,
Good to read your comments. You've picked up something I was concerned with after recently reading comments in the newspaper from the DFM about the game. I've had some involvement with the game myself in the past and whilst I think it's a great idea in principle, the educational value can be limited due to the way it's structured. Primarily because of the time frame but also (AFAIK) it ignores significant costs due to "slippage" and brokerage fees. I said much the same in the DubaiShareTalk forum in more detail here...
Anyway, a more general observation is that long-term, if you buy into the right companies, at a good price, stock investment beats anything else. Long term meaning at least several years. And if you buy into a poor company, then long-term you could see investment value go to zero.
My opinion is there is now good value in SOME shares at DFM and ADSM. But some of the more heavily traded shares still look expensive to me for example I'd rate AMLAK as 5-10 times more expensive than EMAAR. But playing a short term stock game is unlikely to educate participants on how to determine that.
Regards,
sharewadi (sharewadi dot com)
SecretDubai, do you have more information about why speculation in the stock market is considered to be gambling?
Ann - officially, it's clearly not, as it's legal here. I am not a financial expert or an Islamic scholar, but through my work I have spoken with a lot of people in Islamic finance.
The impression delivered is that investing in an Islamic way is a longer term process, where the investor takes more responsibility (in a sense) for what he is investing in. One person described it as being "more like venture capital than a straight bank loan".
Regarding trading, this quote from Wikipedia: "The Qur'an prohibits gambling (games of chance involving money). The hadith literature, in addition to prohibiting gambling (games of chance), also prohibits bayu al-gharar (trading in risk, where the Arabic word gharar is taken to mean "risk")."
An important (and useful) aspect of Islam is that having no central authority, one can get different opinions from different scholars. Here's one guy who doesn't approve of options/derivatives:
"The trading of options as in vogue in the stock markets and as explained by you in your questions is not permissible in Shariah. Firstly, because the option is not something tangible which can be bought or sold and secondly, because this transaction has an element of Gharar or Qimar (gambling). Besides, these derivatives have brought negative results on the economy."
Even not being a muslim, I personally have moral qualms over a high-risk activity which a lot of very inexperienced people are allowed to get themselves into debt (bank loans) to participate in.
SD-
The "guy" you quoted is no ordinary Joe, but a very learned and respected scholar in the subcontinent - Mufti Taqi Uthmani. You have rightly posted from one of the best authorities in Islamic Economics in our age.
He was previously the head of the Islamic Ideological Council in Pakistan and has done extensive research on Islamic Economics till Mr. Musharraf had some qualms with him banning interest. He was thereafter removed from his post and replaced by someone who conformed to the General's perspective.
You all would be surprized to meet Mr. Taqi Uthmani if you ever did! He is a very respected individual and extremely knowledgeable, but his appearance is so simple that you would probably ignore him for a beggar or an ordinary person.
Thanks... well, officially riba is legal too, so the question of legality isn't much help. But it does seem like speculation in the market is simply betting that the price will go up or down.
"But it does seem like speculation in the market is simply betting that the price will go up or down".
I do not agree with that. I dont think anyone of you commenting on this blog is a professional investor. I know one and he told me the market is not a guess game. The decisions they make are based on certain principles. The stock market is not everyones game. There are a lot of internal and external factors that affect the value of a stock. The problem is most of the investors are not professionals, or rely on other not so good ones and decide where to put the money. This guy gets decisions correct 70% of the time, and thats not easy. The remaining 30% might be considered a risk. But then, there is risk is involved in every business. People become bankrupt in a fortnight. Then why should the stock market be any different.
The question isn't whether or not a person knows enough to make profitable choices. Your friend might be betting based on more information than some other investors have, but it's still betting. Just like if I went to a horse race and bet, but I had a lot of information about the horses and their previous histories, etc.
Ann by your definition, all sorts of investment would be betting. When you put money in a horse race, do you actually be a part owner of the horse (as in by investment). No, thats not investment, is it?
hmmm so whats the deal with currency trading is that haram or different than trading regular stocks? because currency trading probably involves some interest being gained in you account or something like that... ... ...
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