People who invest on stock markets its better to invest for a short time because we can not point out the future of the stock market. Long term investment and high hopes can ruin your expectations sometimes.
Longer term, largely bottom-up investing on fundamentals in a diversified portfolio of quality investments is generally a winning formula.
If you're looking to take risks and make big money in a short amount of time, then yes, short term investments are the best option. However, if you're trying to set up an portfolio for your retirement, long term is definitely the better idea.
As the other two has said, it highly depends on what your goal is. It's all about taking risks and possibly profiting from taking those risks. If we only tried to profit in short term investments, many of us wouldn't be as wealthy as we are because of the stock market. It might be less risky to make a short time investment and sell as soon as a profit is near, but if you're willing to take the risk for a long term investment: it may pay off better than you could ever imagine.
Stock market takes great dedication. I held on tesla for years and ended up making thousands. Both investments work.
Long term is pretty risky but it can also be very rewarding in the long-run. With that said, short-term investments are definitely the better option for greater rewards in a short time with less risk.
Short term investing is riskier, no doubt about it. I've done both, and in 20 years of investing, there's no doubt in my mind that trying to realize a profit each and every day, week, month, quarter, and year is much riskier and not the way to go with most of your money for most people. It's also very expensive for the small investor to constantly buy and sell stocks frequently. I cannot tell you what Apple will do tomorrow or next year. I CAN tell you that they will probably be higher in 10 years - probably much higher. Of course there is a chance that's wrong - they could be flat ten years from now, worth less, or perhaps even bankrupt. Highly unlikely, but not impossible. That's why you diversify - because sometimes you will be wrong. If you diversify and invest on fundamentals, in a decade or 2 or 3 of longterm investing, you'll likely have made quite a bit on your initial investment. But if you're trying to manually day trade through a discount broker against high frequency trading systems and human traders with very deep pockets, there's a 95% chance you'll fail. The odds are heavily in your favor with proper longterm investing, and heavily against you with shortterm trading.
Short term traders tend to use gearing while long term traders tend to buy shares with cash (as the carry costs are too high when you are holding for years). This also has a big impact on the riskiness of short term trading. Its very easy to blow out your account when you are trading a highly geared portfolio. If a long term trader buys stock for cash he can hold it for a long time if it goes against him without running into trouble. Whereas the short term (geared) trader risks getting the dreaded margin call.
I like to think of it more as a long-term gain. Too many stocks take rapid rise and falls throughout the duration. This means if you can't handle a loss. You are in big trouble.
I think it's all a matter of balance, try to have long term stable and reliable stocks, but if you want to invest in more volatile options then being on top of it and selling it as soon as you turn a profit it not a bad choice for short term profit.
