RE: $1.4 buyback, 4% increase in fixed dividend3 Aug 2021 09:35
"Role of chance versus skill
Chance or randomness is one of the features of gambling that has been historical used to distinguish it from investing and/or speculation (e.g., O’Malley, 2003; Reith, 2002). However, as mentioned earlier, while randomness is a central feature of many gambling games (e.g., lotteries, scratch tickets, electronic gambling machines, bingo, and most casino table games), skill does have a significant influence on the outcome of some gambling activities (i.e., horse race betting, sports betting, and all person-to-person games such as poker, golf, etc.).
What many people fail to realize is the central role that chance also has in the financial markets. Most economists agree that the major financial markets are fairly “efficient,” meaning the current bid/ask price of a stock or commodity is a fairly accurate valuation, as it is an aggregate real-world reflection of what investors know about the stock/commodity in terms of company management, cash and capital assets, and future prospects (Chan, Gup, & Pan, 2003; Malkiel, 2003; Verheyden, De Moor, & Van den Bossche, 2015). Two important corollaries of efficient markets are that (a) day-to-day directional changes in stock valuation are largely independent of the previous valuation (i.e., random) (Fama, 1995; Malkiel, 2003), and (b) the only way of obtaining higher than average returns on the general market is if the person has information that the general public is unaware of (“insider information”), and/or he/she has superior analytical powers in judging the relative importance of the publicly available information.
The evidence indicates that despite the heavy reliance on research and information to select investments, only a small percentage of professional analysts and traders are able to consistently outperform the average return of the market (Andersson, 2004; Bhootraa, Dreznerb, Schwarzc, & Stohsd, 2015; Cuthbertson, Nitzsche, & O’Sullivan, 2010; Dickens & Shelor, 2003; Fama & French, 2010; Porter, 2004). [Nonprofessional investors generally underperform the market due to higher rates of trading (thereby incurring higher transaction costs) and choosing higher-risk financial products (Barber & Odean, 2000; Barber, Lee, Liu, & Odean, 2009; Grinblatt & Keloharju, 2000; Kumar, 2009; Schlarbaum, Lewellen, & Lease, 1978a, 1978b).] The recognition that most investment managers do not perform above chance accuracy has led to the popularity of “index funds” that simply attempt to track the performance of the general market (and that have very low management fees)."
There is no doubt, scientifically speaking, that day trading is gambling no matter how one spins it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5370364/
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