Читать книгу Psychological Analysis - Adam Sarhan - Страница 46

For the scope of this book, I define “investing” as the act of taking long‐term positions in assets, and “trading” refers to taking short‐term positions. For tax purposes, the government considers long‐term (which I refer to as investing) as anything over one year and short‐term (which I refer to as trading) as anything less than a year. So, for the sake of consistency, I'll use the same definitions. Keep in mind, some people make better investors, and others find more success as traders.

To be clear, I regard trading as speculating. Short‐term traders want to enter and exit stocks for a profit. Plain and simple. On the other hand, investors who buy and hold for years are considered long‐term investors.

Most people confuse “investing” and “trading,” and that confusion leads to subpar performance. I know that speculating has a negative connotation and many people do not like it. I strongly disagree, and I believe that speculating is a healthy and necessary component of a prosperous free‐market society. Think about it for a second: How much wealth has the stock market created over the decades? Wealth for our society, hundreds of millions of people (directly or indirectly), public companies, entrepreneurs, founders, private companies, retirees, pension funds, venture capital firms—the list goes on and on; the market is the engine for the entire economy. Without speculators, the daily volume would be so low that markets would not function the same way they do now, and they would not be as big as they are now. Speculators are a necessary component of healthy markets and healthy economies.