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Picture this: one person is glued to their phone all day, buying and selling every time the market moves… chasing the next hot stock market tip. Another person quietly puts money into solid companies and leaves it there for decades… through good markets…and the bad markets.

Both of these individuals might call it ‘investing.’ But are they really doing the same thing? 

Today we’re going to draw a clear line… and by the end, I think you’ll see why one path aligns so much more naturally with how God calls us to live…and steward His money that is in our care.

 

 

Definitions:

  • Investing is long-term ownership in productive assets or companies. It focuses on fundamentals (earnings, value creation, management), patience, and growth over years or decades. It puts capital to work in ways that can benefit the broader economy, jobs, products, and services.
  • Trading (especially day trading or short-term swing trading) is short-term buying and selling to profit from price fluctuations. It often relies more on timing, technical analysis, and volatility. Time horizons are minutes to months. It can easily slide into speculation.

 

Investing

Investing aligns with our faith because it fulfills the creation mandate to care for and cultivate the world. 

Investing is putting capital into companies, products, and services that make the world work… and ideally, making it a much better place. 

This means we should think through our investing from a moral-screen perspective to make sure what we’re actually doing is aligned with the kind of world we want to see…and even investing that honors God and His Word.

Investing is capital placed in a company with the intention that it promotes good in the world…and in return, it, hopefully, helps the investor do well financially over time.

 

Proverbs 21:5 (ESV)- – “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.”

 

Trading

Trading is more similar to the get-rich-quick mentality. It’s not really putting money to work in a company. 

Investing is putting money into companies for the long haul and benefiting from the success and growth of their business ventures.

We don’t want to say that if you’re a trader, you’re a bad person…please hear that loud and clear!  

There is a market benefit for people who do day-trading as a full-time job. They do this regularly, hold stocks for less than a day, and take advantage of daily market swings.

For the average person, this is not something they can sustainably do.

There’s a way trading could be helpful during a market downturn, because you have your money in cash every night. You could short the market or long the market… but there is an element of “perceived greater control” with trading.

 

Trading vs Investing

With investing, you are in it for the long haul. You’re in it for all the goods, bads, ups, and downs. 

Now, some say that there can be a perception of less control, because your investments are subject to the whims of markets and economies. And yet, the long-term results of investing tend toward greater consistent long-term rewards.

On the flip side, you’re always going to find traders saying you can make more money trading. The reality is… if trading is your full-time job, you might be right! But you also may lose everything you have. There is inherently more risk with this approach.

Trading is good for people who have…

  • The interest
  • The time
  • The desire

…to make following the markets their full-time vocation.

 

For the rest of us (normals), we need to invest with the long-term in mind so we can pursue our God-given calling…and not be hyper focused on the next big (or perceived big) trade that needs to happen.

  • Proverbs 13:11 (ESV)  – “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.”
  • Proverbs 28:20 (ESV) –  “A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.”
  • Ecclesiastes 5:10 (ESV) –  “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.”

 

How Do We Handle Social Media Investing Influencers?

Much of what we see on social media is called “investing” but is actually just a get-rich-quick scheme… and is subject to a lot of manipulation and fraud.

Here are some examples of fraud:

  • Pump-and-Dump: When an influencer pushes a stock with a very low price to try to get more people to buy because it’s a low-volume stock. 
    • Few shares are traded on an average day. 
    • The price increases rapidly, only for the person promoting the stock to come in and sell their large position, causing the price to plummet. 
    • They pump the price up and then dump their shares. 
    • They promise you all kinds of things they will profit from… but none of it is actually true. (Penny stocks, memecoins, cryptos, etc.)
  • Financial conflicts of interest: An influencer promoting a company or stock who is paid to do it but doesn’t disclose the compensation. 
    • It poses a conflict of interest because you don’t know whether they’re stating something because they’re paid to say it… or because they actually believe it. 
    • This can also be a milder version of pump-and-dump, where they own the stock and promote it solely to increase the value of their own position.
  • Fake investment platforms.
  • Investment club fraud (e.g., Bernie Madoff).

What we just shared are some of the reasons we don’t encourage trading for most people.  Not always, but more often than not, these kinds of scams are perpetrated against people who want to get rich quickly and are not interested in the long-term buy-and-hold approach of investing.

  • Proverbs 14:15 (ESV) – “The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.”
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (ESV) – “…but test everything; hold fast what is good.”

 

Closing / Application

Trading is closer to gambling than it is to actual investing. There’s a greater risk of a negative outcome when money is put into a company for such a short period of time. Next week, we’ll take this to the extreme and talk deep and wide about day-trading.

In the meantime, ask yourself: Am I investing with patience and diligence… or am I being pulled toward haste and quick results? 

Long-term investing lets you be a faithful steward over time…through seasons of growth and seasons of testing.

Remember those two paths we talked about at the beginning? One chasing every move… the other quietly faithful over decades. The one who stays the course isn’t just building wealth, they’re living out what it means to be a good and faithful servant. 

Matthew 25:21 (ESV) — “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’”

That’s the kind of investing…and living…we want to as a Stewardology team…and we want you also…to pursue!

For Matthew 25:21 is a beautiful picture of what faithful, long-term stewardship looks like…and the joy that follows. 

 

 

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The topics discussed in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific investment advice or recommendations.  Investing and investment strategies involve risk including the potential loss of principal. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

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