Q&A: Stock Exchange Trading on the Sabbath
Stock Exchange Trading on the Sabbath
Question
Hello and blessings,
Recently I was offered a job in which I would be required to develop computer software that trades stocks or digital currencies. The idea is to develop software that runs 24/7 (since it is possible to lose enormous sums if one does not check the state of the market continuously, especially in the digital currency market, where changes are usually drastic over very short intervals).
I would appreciate it if the Rabbi could address several questions that came up for me on this topic –
A. Benefiting from Sabbath desecration by Jews involved in developing the software (seemingly there is less room here to invoke the usual leniencies, since this is a defined group of people, for business purposes, etc.).
B. Is there any possible prohibition in running such software knowing that it will continue to “run” on the Sabbath as well? Is there any practical difference between software that actually executes trades and software that runs but does not carry out business activity?
C. Is there some standard heter iska for the stock market that perhaps does not exist in the digital currency market, which could lead to prohibitions of interest and the like? The currency trading consists only of buying and selling operations (there are no loans), with payment of a commission to a third party that actually carries out the purchase/sale and conversion into a “real” currency (the third party receives dollars and returns virtual currency, etc.).
Thank you in advance, and may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.
Answer
I think that as long as the activity on the Sabbath is automatic (without people), there is no reason to prohibit it.
Even if there are people who will use the software on the Sabbath, the question is whether you work for a company that uses the software or whether you are developing it for that company. In the second case as well, in my opinion there is no prohibition. The decision is theirs, not yours.
I did not understand question C. A commission is not interest, especially if it is given to the person carrying out the transaction and not to the lender. Is it prohibited to pay a taxi that takes you to the place of the loan, or to the café where you sit and finalize the loan deal?
Discussion on Answer
You are not using the product? So what exactly is the question? Whether you are allowed to work there? If you are not desecrating the Sabbath, I do not see any halakhic prohibition in that.
Admittedly, I am not all that expert in the field, but at first glance I do not see a connection between securities and digital currency. With securities, you have partial ownership in a company (and then the main discussion is about ownership of property created through Sabbath desecration and by one who desecrates the Sabbath himself, and about the cessation of activity of things you own), whereas with digital currency you have full ownership of your coins. What the companies that sell or buy do is not your concern. Even if the sales and purchases of your own coins themselves are done on the Sabbath (I do not know whether that is in fact the case), as long as there is no direct instruction from you to do so, I do not think there is any prohibition.
The more indirect the matter is, the more I am inclined to think it is harder to prohibit, even before getting into a detailed discussion. For example, nobody wonders whether it is permitted to use communications services and websites that operate on the Sabbath, including those run by Jews and Israelis.
I’ll try to explain a bit more –
Regarding section A – I work at a company, and parts of the software were developed/written on the Sabbath by employees of the company. The question here is not about the decision to use it on the Sabbath, but about a product that was partially created on the Sabbath by Jews who are partners in the company.
Regarding section C – there was no initial assumption that a commission is interest. The question is about the leniencies given for stock-market trading (for example, Rabbi Feinstein’s ruling permitting the purchase of individual shares when not for the purpose of acquiring control of the company, etc.) – are there prohibitions here (such as ownership of digital currencies that are traded on the Sabbath, where their sale and purchase may go through companies operating on the Sabbath) for which there are leniencies in the regular stock market that would not apply to digital currencies? For example, if that same third party through whom the purchase is made works on the Sabbath. The “companies” are not limited liability entities. Perhaps there is room to be lenient because the overwhelming majority of those engaged in the field are not Jews.