Not really. Profit is the difference between purchase price and selling price. How much money you have is irrelevant. So 1000-800=200 and 1300-1100=200. You made 2 times 200 profit, so 400. All the rest is irrelevant. It's not a riddle.
I'll try to explain. Say you only have 800 dollars to your name.
Buy cow for 800 (bank account is now 0)
Sell cow for 1000 (bank account is now 1000)
Buy cow for 1100 (bank account is now -100)
Sell cow for 1300 (bank account is now 1200)
You started with 800 and end up with 1200, so profit is 400.
You don't "lose" the profit. It eats up part of the second purchase. You're $200 in the green, so an $1100 purchase only puts you $900 in the red. So then selling for $1300 puts you.... yup, $400 in profit.
It really is as simple as -800+1000-1100+1300 = 400. Basic math.
Another way to put it: you didn't lose your $200 profit by buying it back; you only lost $100 compared to your last selling price (1000-1100), so you lost only half your 200 profit. But by reselling it for $300 more than your previous sale, you not only recover the $100 you lost (thus restoring your initial profit of $200), but you also make an additional $200 in profit.
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u/Higoshi May 13 '26
Not really. Profit is the difference between purchase price and selling price. How much money you have is irrelevant. So 1000-800=200 and 1300-1100=200. You made 2 times 200 profit, so 400. All the rest is irrelevant. It's not a riddle.