Stock market investing and trading stocks are two different ways of looking at the stock market
. There are pros and cons to each strategy.
Long term investing is simply the process of buying strong companies and holding onto them for the long term. Because the companies are fundamentally strong they are unlikely to go out of business any time soon and in fact they are very likely to increase in price as time goes by.
Stock trading works a little differently. Stock traders care less about how fundamentally strong the company is and more about where the stock is heading in the short term. Short term traders attempt to catch the short ups and downs that come with the stock market instead if just riding through the market.
Which one of these strategies is the best strategy for you? Well this kind of depends, there are different advantages to both and depending on your personality you may find one way fits you better then another.
Trading stocks in the short term does have a lot more potential then buying and holding. If you can make short term gains relatively consistent over the long term then you can do pretty well for yourself. However it does take a lot of work and there are no guarantees that you will make any money. It is like starting a business most people will fail their first time around, but those who can keep getting back up and learning from their mistakes will likely do well eventually.
If you are willing to put the time and effort into short term trading it can be a great adventure.
But if you would rather invest your money into something which is relatively safe and gives off a decent return over the long term then buying and holding stocks or ETFs can be a fantastic way of doing that. The major advantage of doing this is that it is passive and it is considered to be secure.
Basically it comes down to this, if you want to earn a relatively safe return passively then investing in the stock market can be a great idea. If however you want to attempt to increase your returns and put some extra time into it then trading stock might be better suited for you.