I'm a bit confused over the term "trader".

My understanding has always been that a trader is someone who comes up with a trading idea, and then makes sure that the trade is executed. His tools are models developed by quants*, and brokers who execute the trades (I refer to brokers as tools in here). If we generalize: I will quote diff excerpts

Well for those who claim to "trade" could you educate some of us.

* Quants: People with low level of sophistication in finance, but very good at mathematics (PhD in math, physics, etc.)

@guru267..i see where your going with this.

Let me sight an example to illustrate this.

Guru267:
1.You are buying because you sense a price movement for some reason (through technical analysis, market/sector news, and so forth)
See What Moves the Market.
2.You are interested in profiting from a price movement and, most likely, selling and moving on to another stock.
3.You have no real interest in the company behind the stock other than it is in the right place at the right time.

Ricdees:
1.I have done a thorough analysis of the company and believe it has long-term growth potential
2.I understand what the company does and its position in its market.
3. If the price drops, i know why and can determine whether this is a short-term situation or a change that will have a long-term impact on the stock’s price.

I think we are both investors difference is you invest in a stock, i invest in a company.

Someone who trades?

Traders look at price movement. Investors look at the business

The kenyan market is a tricky one to trade. 2.1% commission means that trading in and out of two counters will cost you 10% as broker commissions. Commissions on Penny stocks and odd lots is so high since brokers charge a minimum commission of 100.

This is a fallacy

A while a go I read on a day trader on NYSE , his was a capital base of so much dollars of cash and would look at movement of stock prices, thus depending on demand,supply and graphs . he would bet on a stock moving in a certain direction and at the end of day sell all his buys and count his profits. This certainly is not an investor.

Who is a trader?
Someone who bet on equity, fixed income,derivative and alternative investments in hope of profiting from, price movement on either sides,increase or decrease.
Investor?
Is a general term meaning anyone who take a risk in any form of markets in hope of making profits.

There is a difference btw an investor and a trader, an investor is either a fat rich stupid idiot who do not understand anything about capital markets and do not have nerves to execute any trade so they pay a percentage and leave money on the table for jokers like me to have fun with or and institution who manage fund from old people and leave the key to the safe for traders to have fun with
On the other hand a trade is a brilliant individual who have earn the right to recieve free money from investors. Remember, you have to earn a right through hardwork( school). After you have earn the right you can sit and watch supercomputers execute trades for you, good thing is, supercomputers execute trades, you get paid, how cool is that? The rest of the people who call themselve traders are actually dummies, if you still spend time looking at fundemental analyis, you are a dummy quit trading and be an investors!

qw...... is that you? The grammar is so similar.

@capitalm....

Wonder why the investor Warren Buffet beats them all if investors are big fat idiots..

That dude that said investors look at companies and traders look at stocks got it right...

That group of people who just throw their money in and then peek to check the price after 7 years are neither investors nor traders.. Those are the idiots.. they're the same ones who ask their brokers for picks.