3 ms·
You can keep stocks only for milliseconds if you wish... (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequ
by ale42 4y ago
You can keep stocks only for milliseconds if you wish... (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading). And for the less extreme version there's day trading (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_trading) where you sell all your positions before the market closes (basically you try to speculate on intra-day changes of the stocks, so you keep them from minutes to hours).
> Or is this the difference between trading and investing?
Probably, or rather between purely speculating and investing?
- twic 4y agoI don't think trading is the same as speculating. To me, speculating is making big directional bets, eg "I think oil is underpriced right now, so i am going to buy loads of oil futures, then hope that in three months i can sell them at a much higher price". Whereas trading is usually much shorter-term and less directional, eg "I think French government bonds are overpriced relative to German government bonds right now, so i am going to get short French bond futures, buy an equivalent amount of German cash bonds, then hope that in a couple of days i can unwind that for a profit". And investing is "people like to drink Coca-Cola, so i will buy shares in the Coca-Cola company". But i don't think there are hard and fast definitions.
- Joker_vD 4y agoYeah, some people use "trading" and "speculating" in the exactly opposite way than you do. Some equate speculating and trading entirely: a trader is someone who buys something not for personal use but for further resale, and of course they hope to sell at a higher price, duh.