Playing the Market as a Strategy?

Is it possible to win by strictly playing the market?

I've only clocked about 7 hours in the game so far, so am still trying to understand the mechanics.

It doesn't seem like a "market only" strategy is very viable (meaning focus on buying and selling, not on production; buy low, sell high).

I guess the issue, from my perspective, is that whenever you purchase a resource, the price hikes, and whenever you sell, it drops.

So if I see a stock at $1, and I buy a pile of it -- say 1000 units -- I didn't just spend $1000, and probably spent a lot more, because the price hiked as I purchased.

And then, when I sell, I don't think i am able to sell everything at the current market high price... seems like price drops as I sell, so my 1,000 units at $100 would not actually net me $100,000 by the time I sell out.

 

Similarly, it doesn't seem like you can make much money purchasing competitor stocks. If I but at $20, and the stock increases to $23, I don't think I'm going to make too much money on the sale. The variations in competitor stock pricing don't seem to be "enough" to generate a level of profit comparable to production.

 

So, yeah, I'm curious if anyone actually attempts this notion of a "trading only" tactic, and pulls it off effectively.

 

Let me know.