To think that this sum is super simple

[PeerieBreeks]

and can't understand how so many people on Facebook have it so completely wrong (and can justify it to themselves).

Without adding your reasoning, tell me what you think the answer is.

[PeerieBreeks]

Bookaboo, the net and gross profit in this case are the same, as there are no other costs.

Bookaboo it is two separate transactions, which is why it is helpful to view them as such.

The people that are getting it wrong are the people that are doing something funny in the middle with a perceived loss.

Instead of doing something with a perceived loss try adding and subtracting the total amounts paid /received to get the profit figure.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Oooh! Interesting perspective:

You only have $60 dollars to your name. Over weekend you buy and sell a horse and on Monday morning you have $90... so your profit is $30.

But, as I tried to explain to the friend who is here pondering this..... you only had $60, then $70. But the second purchase was $80, so you had to borrow $10 from me and pay me back...

Not sure our morning is going as we planned

[CecilyP]

The question asks in the end, so surely it's net profit, not gross profit?

No, net profit would take into account his expenses and, as someone said unthread, transporting the horses would normally incur a loss.

[TheIrregularChoice]

The farmer is £20 better off at the end than he was at the start. No matter how I look at it, I can’t get to any other answer.
Have I missed something, like misread a word, and the answer is actually five magic beans or a pig?

[Paleblue]

20 profit

[APerfectSky]

I also got 10 (maths is not my strong point either!) because he paid out 60, got back 70, so up 10. Then he paid out 80, so paid the 70 he now has, plus another 10 from his money, so he's 10 down. Then he gets back 90, which is his 70 from the last transaction, then one of the extra 10s goes to paying off the extra 10 he needed from the second transaction, which leaves 10.

I think I've now massively confused myself...

[IShouldGoToBed]

Curious - he didn't have only $60 tobhis name to begin with - unless a team some point he went $10 into his overdraft!! (Sounds like me)!

[DadDadDad]

Illustration using Believeitornot's suggestion. (Back on page 2 - there have been quite a few posts while I was creating this!).

He starts the day with (an arbitrary) $200 in his pocket and will finish after all the transactions with $220. So $20 profit.

[SweetIcedTea]

When did everything become super?

[Sofabitch]

Buys for $60 ($0-$60) has -$60
Sells for $70 (-60+70) has +$10
Buys for $80 (10-80) has -$70
Sells for $90 (-70+90) has $20

[XmasInTintagel]

I always find, when people say something is really simple, that those people don't all agree on the same answer, but that doesn't seem to affect their view that its simple and they're right!

I didn't find it totally obvious what the answer was, and took a minute to work it out - as if I had an account with $100 to start with, then did the 4 transactions in turn.

I was not super fast, but I am really confident I know what the answer is. $20 profit.

You can get the numbers to say all sorts depending on what you want them to

Not so - it really doesn't depend how you look at it with numbers - they are consistent and logical!

[LS83]

Yanbu but I'm not sure why you care so much that some people are getting it wrong. It's Facebook.

[splendide]

I’m fairly innumerate but found this easy. It’s not at all a maths problem
(assuming you can add and subtract simple numbers), it’s a reading comprehension/ logic problem.

It’s ok to be bad at those things too.

[bakingaddict]

It's too ambiguous as a statement though isn't it. You can look at it a number of ways. You can either say he made $20 profit by taking the transactions as independent variables or by looking at in as cumulative profit in the context of all the transactions.

[brizzledrizzle]

Broke even ?

[XmasInTintagel]

You can look at it a number of ways. You can either say he made $20 profit by taking the transactions as independent variables or by looking at in as cumulative profit in the context of all the transactions.

But the correct answer will be the same either way, so it doesn't matter which way you look at it surely?

[Danglingmod]

Yeah, I agree. You don't get this wrong by being weak at maths (the maths involved is very, very basic). You get it wrong by being weak at comprehension and/or logic skills.

[bruffin]

Its 30
He started off with 60 and ended up with 90

[PeerieBreeks]

Haha, love the 'backlash'.

@SweetIcedTea in not sure that everything has become super. I'll watch the news and get back to you.

@LS83 I do care. Deeply. It saddens me to the very core that people are calling other people out when they in fact have the wrong answer themselves. It's traumatising. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the day.

[BitOutOfPractice]

Well, we don't know his actual profit because the horse cost him to feed.
Then there's deperciation of the asset...

[BadLad]

I've got maths A-level and I think there's an argument for saying that he made either 10 or 20. It depends on whether you see it as 1 or 2 transactions. Because if it's one transaction, he lost 10 by buying it back for 80 when he'd sold for 70.

It doesn't matter how many transactions you see it as. When all the transactions are over and done with, the bloke is 20 better off than he was at the start.

[BitOutOfPractice]

Depreciation obv

[emmcan]

$20. Helps if you split the sum up.
Man starts with $100, buys horse for $60. Has $40.
Sells horse for $70. Has $110
Buys horse for $80. Has $30.
Sells horse for $90. Has $120.
So a profit of $20.