Why do you suppose the brokers on the floor of the New York Stock

"
Why do you suppose the brokers on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange always cheer at the sound of the closing bell—no matter
what the market did that day? Because whenever you trade, they
make money—whether you did or not. By speculating instead of investing,
you lower your own odds of building wealth and raise someone
else’s.

Graham’s definition of investing could not be clearer: “An investment
operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety
of principal and an adequate return.” 1 Note that investing, according to
Graham, consists equally of three elements:
• you must thoroughly analyze a company, and the soundness of its
underlying businesses, before you buy its stock;
• you must deliberately protect yourself against serious losses;
• you must aspire to “adequate,” not extraordinary, performance.

An investor calculates what a stock is worth, based on the value of
its businesses. A speculator gambles that a stock will go up in price
because somebody else will pay even more for it. As Graham once
put it, investors judge “the market price by established standards of
value,” while speculators “base [their] standards of value upon the
market price.” 2 For a speculator, the incessant stream of stock quotes
is like oxygen; cut it off and he dies. For an investor, what Graham
called “quotational” values matter much less. Graham urges you to
invest only if you would be comfortable owning a stock even if you had
no way of knowing its daily share price.3
Like casino gambling or betting on the horses, speculating in the
market can be exciting or even rewarding (if you happen to get lucky).
But it’s the worst imaginable way to build your wealth. That’s because
Wall Street, like Las Vegas or the racetrack, has calibrated the odds
so that the house always prevails, in the end, against everyone who
tries to beat the house at its own speculative game.
On the other hand, investing is a unique kind of casino—one where
you cannot lose in the end, so long as you play only by the rules that
put the odds squarely in your favor. People who invest make money for
themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And
that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable
virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation.
"

from "The Intelligent Investor" book by Benjamin Graham

Read the book here