There's no difference between investing and trading for the average retail stock market dabbler. Anytime you trade money for a stock, you are speculating that t

There's no difference between investing and trading for the average retail stock market dabbler. Anytime you trade money for a stock, you are speculating that the asset will go in the direction you want, mostly up. If someone is looking through financial statements and has intimate knowledge of the industry, more power to you since you are more likely to be the classical definition of an investor. I can give you loads and loads of examples where you could have held and suffered much greater losses over time. Last year I "invested" in $FSLY. Look at the stock performance. It would need to go up 900% to get back to its 2021 peak. Can it happen? Sure. Would you buy the stock thinking it could do a 900%?