What is the difference between investing and trading?

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What is Investing?

There are two types of investment – passive investments and active investments. Passive investments don’t require much from you, such as managing the portfolio or monitoring the performance. Active investment requires more effort from the investor, such as picking stock picks and making trades.

Active investments


In the case of active investors, usually pick stocks, commodities, ETFs (exchange-traded funds), or mutual funds. They trade their investments, analyze returns, rebalance their portfolios, etc.

Passive investments


Unlike passive investments, active investments involve risk due to the potential for big losses. The investment has a higher chance of going down and the return is lower. In addition, active investments also have no guarantees.

What is Trading?

It might seem simple, but learning how to trade successfully takes practice. Many beginners tend to get confused because they don’t know where to start. If you want to become a successful trader, then you should know these basic principles.

Trading involves buying something at one price and selling it later at another, usually for a profit. Traders do their research before entering into a deal to ensure they get the best price for their investment.

An important factor for traders is time management. They need to know how much time they spend researching and analyzing different markets. This way, they’ll be able to pick the most profitable trades every time.

Investing vs. Trading

Investing – Investing means buying something that you believe will increase in value (i.e., a stock). Trading- means buying something you already own and selling something else you own in order to make money.

If you’re looking to invest your hard-earned dollars in a promising company whose shares have been skyrocketing lately, the first thing you need to do is find out if the company is publicly traded. If not, you cannot buy its shares directly from the company’s shareholders, or any other investors who happen to own those shares, and thus you cannot become an owner of that particular company. You could still get involved indirectly through a mutual fund, which would allow you to buy shares of many different companies at once. But you’d be paying high fees to do so, and the process would take longer than just purchasing the shares directly from the company.

If you want to trade instead, what you’re doing is buying something you already own. If you sell short, you’ll borrow shares from someone else who owns them and agree to return them later at a profit. Thus, you essentially owe that person money now, although he may not realize it yet. Your obligation to pay back the borrowed shares is called a margin call. In some cases, your broker will require additional cash or collateral, or both, before passing along your request for a loan to his client, the lender.

So, whether you want to invest or trade depends on how much time you have to wait to receive dividends and/or profits. Do you have a long time horizon? Then go ahead and invest. Are you impatient? Trade!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is the difference between investing and trading?

There are two types of investment – passive investments and active investments. Passive investments don’t require much from you, such as managing the portfolio or monitoring the performance. Active investment requires more effort from the investor, such as picking stock picks and making trades.
Trading involves buying something at one price and selling it later at another, usually for a profit. Traders do their research before entering into a deal to ensure they get the best price for their investment.

What is Trading?

Trading involves buying something at one price and selling it later at another, usually for a profit. Traders do their research before entering into a deal to ensure they get the best price for their investment.

What is Investing?

There are two types of investment – passive investments and active investments. Passive investments don’t require much from you, such as managing the portfolio or monitoring the performance. Active investment requires more effort from the investor, such as picking stock picks and making trades.

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