Many people have mixed up the terms Investor and Trader to mean the same thing. They cant be more wrong. It is exactly the mixing up of these 2 very important terms that led to many people starting on the wrong foot in the capital markets.
An Investor is a person who puts his money where it can potentially generate a return. He does not usually get involved in the money making process. Investors include buyers of investment real estate and buyers of funds.
A Trader is a person who fights in the capital markets front line personally in order to generate equity. He is the one who personally chooses the investment instrument (e.g option trading), makes an opinion on it and executes a series of trades in order to make money out of it.
Too many people have mixed being a trader for being an investor. This has led to a lot of misunderstanding. The misunderstanding comes from the wide spread teaching that anyone can choose to break out of the rat race by choosing to be an investor rather than a worker. That person then turns to exploring option trading or forex or such instruments as an investor and completely finds that not everyone can excel in those...