Is trading in the stock market the same as gambling?

I heard many people saying you should not touch the stock market. It's the same as gambling. Is it really true that playing the stock market is the same as gambling? Let me do some analysis for you to let you understand the whole issue.

There are many things that people can gamble on. Buying the lottery, going to the casino etc. Let's say buying the lottery. In Singapore, its called 4D. You have to choose a number from 0000-9999 and buy the ticket. If your number is chosen, you win some money. There are first, second, third and a few consolidation prizes. Maybe total about 10 chances. Let's do the probability of you winning. It will be 20/9999= 0.2%. Did you see that? Just 0.2% chance of winning. That's why even when you win, you'll become more greedy and buy more and in the end you will lose back everything because of the very small percentage chance of winning. How about the casino? Let's say you play the game of blackjack. The most it will be 50-50 chance of winning. That is still gambling because there is no strategy behind it and you still depend on luck.

Now, how about the stock market? What is the probability of you making money? I can say professional traders or investors can achieve more than 80-90% chance of making money. It is very hard for them to lose money. How did they do it? 

They do it by reducing risk. How do you reduce risk?
There are many ways:
1) Good Capital Management
2) Budgeting
3) Hedging
4) Profit Taking
5) Stop Loss
6) Macroeconomics
7) Fundamental Analysis
8) Technical Analysis

These are just a few strategy of how do professionals reduce risk. To learn everything, it takes year of hard work and experience. Now you know why most people who invest in the stock market lose money. It is because most people do not know how to reduce risk or they simply are too lazy to learn. You have to understand that there are many factors that move the stock market. Two of the most important factors are news and earnings. This is where the importance of studying macroeconomics comes into play. You have to know how demand and supply works. You have to track the economic indicators to know how the economy is doing. You need to know how to read a company's financial statement.

Another important thing is the need to have a plan. You need to research and know the company you're going to invest in. You need to know if the company healthy financially? You need to plan your entry point, stop loss and when are you going to take profit. You need to plan your finances and make sure you don't buy more than the money you have. You need to calculate how much can you afford to lose and plan the worse case scenario.

Trading and investing if done properly is just like running a business. In fact, it is a recession proof business as you can make money when its going up and you can also make money when its going down(short selling).  A warning though that if you're not willing to work hard and put in the effort to learn, you will not succeed. If you still thing that you can make money easily in stocks, you're still dreaming. The fastest way to learn is to find someone who's already successful in the stock market and learn from them. If you're willing to put in the effort and work hard, chances are you may succeed. Remember, only 5% of people make money, the rest of the 95% will lose money. Learn what the 5% do to be successful.