[dsacco]

> But do you want to invest or do you want to trade?

This is a false dichotomy.

First, just semantically speaking: investors "invest" in hedge funds that engage in speculation via trading strategies across a continuum of risk profiles. Hedge funds take their capital from "investors"; they typically have "Chief Investment Officers", and their traders execute trades in order to fulfill investment goals for clients according to fund-specific "investment mandates."

Second, by actual meaning: investing does not refer only to "value investing", which is substantially what you're referring to. Investors are, in the abstract, people who seek a positive return on their capital relative to another benchmark, where that benchmark is typically parameterized by risk, percentage return and liquidity. Trading is an activity in the service of investing, and a trading strategy is the execution of an investment thesis. The principles that allow for positive returns in value-based investing and index investing broadly generalize to other areas of investing, and essentially map to the concepts of arbitrage and (mis)priced assets in the abstract. Just as you can get invest your capital in real estate or young startups, you can invest your capital in trading strategies.

Whether or not it's wise to pursue a self-managed trading strategy (or seek others to manage one for you) is a completely separate topic; my point here is to emphasize that we're doing a conceptual disservice in education (and an abuse of well-accepted terminology) if we act as though trading and investing are different concepts. A much better way to frame your point here is to use terminology such as "passive investing" versus "active investing."

[pedrocr]

>investors "invest" in hedge funds that engage in speculation via trading strategies across a continuum of risk profiles

This is precisely the opposite of what I'm suggesting. Instead of implementing these trading strategies just buy the average of the market at low fees and don't trade anything.

>investing does not refer only to "value investing", which is substantially what you're referring to. Investors are, in the abstract, people who seek a positive return on their capital relative to another benchmark

Again a misrepresentation. I'm definitely not arguing you should be value investing or trying to get alpha by beating any benchmark. Quite the opposite. I'm arguing you should just hold the market average which requires no trading besides the initial purchases.

>if we act as though trading and investing are different concepts. A much better way to frame your point here is to use terminology such as "passive investing" versus "active investing."

I'm definitely arguing for passive investing but also in strategies that quite actively do not trade. Ultimately this is just splitting hairs on terminology but you'll be hard pressed to find the term "trading" in actual use for someone that just passively invests in the total market. I doubt you'll find anyone on bogleheads.org that will identify with the term. Trading is a term usually reserved for people who will actively trade in and out of various securities on a regular basis.