Imagine two friends each start with $10,000.

One buys a low-cost fund tracking the S&P 500. He adds money when he can and gets on with his life.

The other buys and sells stocks.

He reads charts every night. He studies earnings. He sets alerts. His phone lights up during dinner because a stock has crossed a line he drew on Tuesday.

A few years later, they compare accounts.

The first friend has made more money.

The second friend knows considerably more about candlesticks.

That is an uncomfortable result if you love trading.

In Unshakeable, Tony Robbins makes the case for staying invested rather than trying to jump in and out of the market. One reason is that missing a small number of the market’s strongest days can badly damage long-term returns. More recent research from Schwab makes the same point. Schwab research on staying invested

So let’s ask the question a trading website should be willing to answer:

If buying and holding the S&P 500 works so well, why should anyone still trade?

First, Admit How High the Bar Is

The S&P 500 is a difficult opponent.

It doesn’t panic because of a red candle.

It doesn’t get bored on a quiet Wednesday.

It doesn’t sell a winning position to feel clever, then buy it back at a higher price.

And you can gain broad exposure to it without making dozens of stock decisions each month.

Meanwhile, every active decision gives a trader another chance to get something wrong: the stock, the entry, the exit, the size, or simply the decision to trade at all.

This is more than a thought experiment. In the first half of 2026, 67% of active US large-cap equity funds underperformed the S&P 500, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. That measures professional funds, not individual swing traders, but it shows how demanding the benchmark is. S&P Dow Jones Indices: SPIVA U.S. Mid-Year 2026

An earlier study of individual brokerage accounts found that the households trading most frequently earned substantially less than the market during the period studied. Barber and Odean: Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth

If your aim is long-term wealth building and you have no proven trading edge, buying and holding a diversified, low-cost fund is a strong starting point.

I would say that even if I owned a trading platform.

But the Famous “Best Days” Argument Has a Catch

You may have heard this:

“Miss the market’s ten best days and your returns collapse.”

The arithmetic is real. The lesson is useful: getting out of the market can be expensive.

But think about how that example is constructed.

It removes the best days while leaving every worst day in the result.

A real trader cannot choose to miss only the bad days, of course. But the example doesn’t, by itself, prove that every strategy involving a sale is doomed.

It proves something narrower and important:

If you leave the market without a reliable way to get back in, you may miss the rebound.

That is a serious problem. Market recoveries can happen quickly, often when the news still feels terrible.

It is also different from proving that every disciplined trading strategy loses to buy and hold.

Investing and Trading Are Doing Different Jobs

Imagine owning a small shop.

One part of the business owns the building. It is there to grow in value over many years.

Another part buys and sells inventory. It has to choose what to stock, how much to risk, and when to clear the shelves.

You wouldn’t judge the inventory manager by asking why he didn’t hold the same box of shoes for 20 years.

You also wouldn’t fire the building manager for failing to sell the property every time someone offered a slightly higher price.

The jobs are different.

Investing seeks to participate in long-term growth.

Trading tries to profit from specific price opportunities over a shorter period.

The difference does not make trading easier. It means you must be clear about what success looks like.

If you trade because you believe you can grow wealth faster than an index, compare your actual returns with the index after costs and taxes where applicable.

If you trade to pursue returns through a different pattern of exposure and risk, compare those too. A trader who holds cash for long stretches should understand both the risks avoided and the market gains missed.

And if you trade because you enjoy the challenge, that is your choice. Just don’t confuse enjoyment with an edge.

“I Made Money” Is Not Enough Evidence

Suppose the S&P 500 gained 20% in a year.

You traded stocks and gained 12%.

You made money.

That matters. But if beating a simple index fund was your goal, you missed your target.

Now suppose you made 24%.

Did you beat the market because your process was good? Or because you took much more risk, concentrated in a few stocks, and happened to be right?

One year won’t necessarily settle that question.

This is why a trader needs records that go beyond screenshots of winners:

  • What was your return after trading costs?
  • How much capital did you put at risk?
  • How large were your drawdowns?
  • Did you follow the same rules across many trades?
  • Did your results improve on the alternative of simply holding the index?

The S&P 500 is useful here. It is the hurdle your effort must justify.

So Should You Buy and Hold or Trade?

My answer is: give long-term investing the default position. Make trading earn its place.

That could mean keeping money intended for long-term goals in a diversified investment plan, while using a separate, risk-limited account to develop and test a trading strategy.

The separation matters because it stops one common mistake.

A swing trade fails.

The trader says, “That’s fine. I’ll hold it for ten years.”

Suddenly, a short-term entry has become a long-term investment. The decision changed only after the trade went wrong.

Keep the questions separate:

For an investment: Would I still want to own this over years, and does it fit my long-term plan?

For a trade: Is the setup still valid, and am I following the risk and exit plan I set before entering?

A great company can be a poor trade today. A successful short-term trade doesn’t automatically belong in your retirement portfolio.

When Does Trading Deserve Your Capital?

Trading deserves serious capital when you have evidence that you can execute a repeatable process.

That means more than calling a few market turns correctly.

You need enough recorded trades to see what tends to happen when your setup appears. You need to know what you lose when you’re wrong, what you make when you’re right, and whether those numbers still work after costs.

You also need to know whether you can follow the strategy.

A strategy that looks excellent on a spreadsheet but requires you to watch a screen for six hours while you have another job is not an excellent strategy for you.

And the evidence should change your behaviour.

If your trading record consistently fails to justify the time and risk, put less capital into it. If the evidence improves, you can consider scaling carefully.

That may sound less exciting than “I’m going to beat Wall Street.”

It is considerably more useful.

Final Thoughts

Tony Robbins’s buy-and-hold argument should make traders uncomfortable.

Good.

A strong benchmark forces an honest question:

What am I getting in return for all these extra decisions?

For many people, holding a low-cost, diversified fund and leaving it alone will be the better choice.

For someone with a tested trading process, trading may still have a place. But that place has to be earned through results, risk control, and consistency.

You don’t need to choose an identity. “Investor” and “trader” are jobs you give different portions of your capital.

Give each job a purpose.

Then measure whether it is doing that job well.

Buy and hold is the benchmark. Trading is the application to beat it.