It all depends on why you are on the markets. If you have savings and want to grow the capital until retirement no doubt that long-term view is appropriate and short-term tweaking will not bring anything. Still it does not to be a strict buy-and-hold approach, but the time frame is long. If you want to generate a supplemental income, or (even more) if you are seeking to make a living out of the markets you are bound to the short-term and to a quick rotation of capital. But it takes skills and hard work.
I do try to profit every year and hopefully beat the market every year as well, but there are the occasional underperforming years and the odd losing year. Of course much of that annual performance for me is not on actual realized gains or losses. I don't generally buy and hold forever, but I don't turn very many positions over in the same day or week. 90-95% of my investing is off bottom-up fundamentals, and I change those positions as the fundamentals dictate. The other 5-10% is more speculative, with some quick trades and day trades here and there. If I'm down or underperform for the quarter or the month I don't sweat it - as long as I'm aware of things and understand what's going on, it's not an issue for my style of investing. If it's an odd losing year and I'm down less than the market is, it's a good year. If I made some money in a year like '13 when the markets were irrationally pumped, it's still a good year even if I underperformed. If I lag a second year in a row, I need to understand why and at least consider correcting something I'm doing or not doing.
Short term investing involves any type of investment that is kept less than three years. Their are many advantages of getting involved with short term investing. One of the big advantages of short-term investing is that you have some flexibility. Another advantage of short-term investing is that you can get substantial returns. With long-term investing it might take a great deal of time before you see any results, which can be discouraging. Does anyone here prefer long-term over short-term?
As long term investments for me I have chosen good stable stocks with good future looks. If I want to short term I'll choose the risky stocks which might fall a lot or rise a lot.
Some interesting views here. My take-away is that there is no right or wrong way. Neither short term or long is wrong. You need to develop a strategy that meets your own objectives and a system makes sense to you. It also has to do with how much risk you can handle. If your stocks are keeping you up at night, you are probably taking too much risk.
Balance is also important strykstar. I suppose if we just had the crystal ball we could find the right balance
Long term is always the best way to go. It has always been known. You have to stay in it to win it, like in poker.
