Say, we have two brothers that is keen on investment. One of them is Speculative Kim and the other one is Investor Buffet.
The world is divided into multipolar and not unipolar, so i cannot say one method of investment is better than another.
Let us see how Kim's makes money. Kim buy on rumors and sell on facts. He was not interested in the fundamental of the company, he was more interested in daily profit as he believe the technical of the stock is more important than the fundamental in spoting which stock is favorite by operator. He believe that playing stock is like earning daily income as he is not patience to wait for a undervalue stock to bear fruit as he believes in the long term everyone is dead. He wants his money and he wants it now. He would make sure that technical will help him ride up the way up and ride down the wave via long and short position respectively. He does not believe in building wealth, he trusted no one except for his technical skills.
Buffet, on the other hand is an investor and he believe that if he buy dollar for penny he will have big margin of safety and he can profit when the stone that he bought become polished diamond. He does not believe in the hype by the public, he based his decision on cold fundamental facts before making his decision to purchase a stock as stock in the short term is a voting machine and in the long term is a weighing machine.
Both ways can make money but you must make sure which way suit you best, whether you are a speculator or investor as both can suffer serious consequence too as we cannot break the golden rule of investing but we break ourself going against the golden principle and the higher the risk, higher will be the gain.
A speculator must be a master of technical to buy before the syndycate and sell before the syndycate as they believe stock chart never lies. A speculator will perish if they never look out for danger sign and live to fight another day. He is at the mercy of the syndycate such as cfm, hongseng, tawin, asiaply as current reference in bursa.
An investor must be a master of fundamental in making sure that the thing that he buy is good from the start. If he bought a stock that turns out to be a can of worms rather than unpolished diamond he will have the fastest way to the coop or the poor house. He is at the mercy of how accurate his current fundamental information and whether the stock that he buy can withstand the test of time like kodak, xerox, nokia and blackberry that go bust when demand is not there anymore, worse still he is subjected to false information such as what happen to Enron, Bear stern and Credit suisse.
If you realized that you are a speculator and end up as an investor you have failed and will be keeping some unpopolar unsold stock in the closet with massive losses or if you are an investor and you tried to trade for a profit daily, you will be selling what you needs to buy something you don't need and will not have the time for your profitable stock to run their full course.
The most profitable investment of the century is to understand your character and temperament as a speculator or as an investor and learn to overcome the risks and setback for a particular class of trading or investment as the saying goes a good stock is the one that you make money and a bad stock is the one that you lose money.
Bless is the one that understands his own personality.
Moral of the story: Every one greatest enemy is his emotional makeup.
Have a bless day ahead,
Dr. Lion.