Long term investing vs short/ medium term trading

If you hold for a few decades, some stocks' market capitalisation can rise from USD200 million to USD 2 trillion. But that's only a handful of stocks and it's difficult to identify early.

Short/ medium term trading

Bitcoin

From the chart above, you can see BTC is very volatile. Lets say you bought at USD30,000 in Jan 2021 with expectation of USD100,000. In Sep 2022, it is around USD20,000. So you are suffering a loss. If you do short/ medium term trading, you would have sold in Jun 2021 at USD60,000. Then bought at USD30,000 in Apr and sold at USD69,000 in Nov 2022.And you could buy at USD18,000 in Jun 2022. You would have made more profit. Hence, the more volatile the security, the more you shouldn't invest long term.

Lets look at a stock that is not very volatile. Lets say you bought SIA in Nov 2019 at SGD9.40, expecting it to rise to SGD12. At current price of 5.29. you would have made a loss. If you bought and sold the swings as shown in the chart above, you'll make more profit than long term investing.

Another example. You bought iFast at SGD10 in Oct 2021, expecting it to rise to SGD14. You made a loss because the current price is SGD4.57. If you bought and sold the swings, you'll make more profit again.

Hence for the reasons above, I prefer short/ medium term trading.