Is trading is not a good idea to make a fortune?  

Is investing is a better option than trading short term?

I am writing this to one friend or maybe many that have position in the stock market with EPF or whatever retirement plan's money. Hope you invest in the right way, the right entity and good luck.

There are some points we can look at. There are no right or wrong. Only the right techniques and tools. But let's face the reality that, at some point,  there are some invisible forces that sounds very disappointing to me. Again a reminder that this is from a amateur opinion and nothing about trading advise. We share and give.

The art of investing and trading.

Investing in oneself and enterprises one actively controls maybe only legitimate deployment of capital that qualifies as an investment in the traditional sense. 

Since I have been discussing the stock market in general terms, it seems, is a good time to briefly note the difference between trading and investing. 

In general investing is putting capital at risk for the long term based on a trend or story that the investor believes may have a material impact on whatever investment vehicle he has chosen to invest in.

In general, trading is shorter term and technical based. A trader might buy and sell the investor chosen vehicle many times based on technicals and indicators.

The long term investor may use technical tools to choose entry points for example, MACD and moving average crosses, but the investment is fundamentally based on the story about the underlying dynamics and trend changes. These type of investor may be betting in this story that either the products or services in certain areas will decline as fracked production falls off. Or demand will rise even faster than production, pushing the value of the vehicle faster.

To the investor with this long term story, the last year price variations are essentially signal noises. 

Whatever the underlying dynamics, demand will outstrip supply and price will move dramatically higher over the time. 

To the trader, the dynamics and the trends of the story have no material impact on trading decision, which all are technical:  bullish or bearish crosses, moves above or below the Bollinger bands and etc.

The choice of being an investor or trader is not / either or. Some people have both a long term investment in financial instrument and another sum of money in a trading account that they use to actively buy and sell the same instrument. 

The invisible forces.

One can find a story about the economy or stock market compelling, but choose not to trade or invest based on the story because the stock market may be trading more on sentiment and central bank intervention than on fundamentals. 

In other words, it is an open question whether the market is heavily dependent on perception management and unprecedented intervention by central banks, opaque dark pools, shadow banking, digital trading robots run by major players and gamed corporate profit and loss statement can support traditional long term investments without exposing investors to largely invisible systematic risks.

From this perspective, investing in oneself and enterprise one actively control may be the only legitimate deployment of capital that qualifies as an investment in a traditional sense- that is capital isn't being risked in rigged capital halls and misleading information to the people.

You have probably heard the stock market truism, what everyone knows has no value. What happens when a bet can't lose, does in fact lose? The trust is lost.

We may discuss and share this in the near future. 

Till then. Trade and invest wisely.

P/s: Participants makes decision based on the information make available to all. If the information from the real world is surpressed or limited, then the decisions made by the participants will be necessarily misinformed. I have no trust with this crooked top-notch policy makers, I hope my friend willl invest with great care and attention.guided by the right people.