Jeff Deist on price discovery

The purpose of capital markets is price discovery.  They help investors and businesses allocate capital to its best and highest uses, however imperfectly and haphazardly.  Short traders, long traders, so-called insider traders, futures traders, derivative contracts, speculators, gamblers, colluders, and even naked short sellers all serve this imperfect process.

~ Jeff Deist, "The GameStop Saga Unravels Stakeholder Theory," Mises.org, February 3, 2021

Kevin Duffy on the role of financial markes

We’ve lost sight of the fact that the financial markets exist to efficiently allocate capital.  Mock and destroy that function and you’ve done the same to a functioning economy.  Interest rates are no longer set in the marketplace, but manipulated by central bankers.  Active investment managers seeking value have been replaced by index funds on auto-pilot.  The market’s most capable sleuths and skeptics – short sellers – have been exterminated.  Investors and speculators have become divorced from their key role as price discovery agents.  Price and value no longer matter.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Game Over," LewRockwell.com, February 1, 2021