{"id":23068,"date":"2021-01-16T09:53:53","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T13:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=23068"},"modified":"2021-01-24T18:08:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-24T22:08:09","slug":"types-of-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/","title":{"rendered":"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive &#038; Aggressive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What are the two types of investors? Is one type of investing more likely to get better results than another?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <em>The Intelligent Investor,<\/em> Ben Graham describes two types of investors: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/defensive-investors\/\">defensive investors<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/aggressive-investors\/\">aggressive investors<\/a>. Defensive investors don&#8217;t want to spend time investing. Aggressive investors love looking for new stocks and ideas. Both are good tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about the two types of investors and how they work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Two Types of Investors<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Having distinguished investors from speculators, Graham then defines two different types of intelligent investors: defensive investors and aggressive (or enterprising) investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Defensive investors<\/strong> want to avoid spending too much time on investing. They like simplicity and don\u2019t love thinking about investments or money. Their goal is to perform on average in line with the market, and to avoid serious mistakes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Aggressive investors<\/strong> are willing to devote serious time and energy to research stocks and select good ones. They enjoy thinking about money and see smart investing as a competitive game they want to win. Their goal is to achieve better returns than the passive investor (Graham says an extra 5% per year, before taxes, is necessary to justify all the effort.)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both approaches can be intelligent and can perform well. The key is choosing the right type of investment for your temperament and goals, to stick with it over your entire investment timeline, and to keep your emotions well under control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Exercise: What Kind of Investor Are You?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two types of investors. Define what kind of investor you should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Are you currently an investor or a speculator? Remember that investment is an \u201coperation that, through extensive analysis, provides an adequate return and safety of principal.\u201d investors always consider the underlying value of what they\u2019re buying.<\/li><li>Have you ever speculated before? What did you do, and what was the result?<\/li><li>Going forward, how much time are you willing to spend on investment?<\/li><li>What are your expectations of returns, relative to the market average?<\/li><li>What kind of investor should you be? Why would you not want to be the other kind of investor?<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are the two types of investors? Is one type of investing more likely to get better results than another? In The Intelligent Investor, Ben Graham describes two types of investors: defensive investors and aggressive investors. Defensive investors don&#8217;t want to spend time investing. Aggressive investors love looking for new stocks and ideas. Both are good tactics. Read more about the two types of investors and how they work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,14,31],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-23068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-management","category-money","tag-the-intelligent-investor","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Two Types of Investors: Defensive &amp; Aggressive - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are two types of investors: aggressive investors and defensive investors. Both are good strategies. Read more about them here.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive &amp; Aggressive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are two types of investors: aggressive investors and defensive investors. Both are good strategies. Read more about them here.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-01-16T13:53:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-01-24T22:08:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive &#038; Aggressive\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-16T13:53:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-24T22:08:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/\"},\"wordCount\":359,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The Intelligent Investor\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business\",\"Management\",\"Money\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/\",\"name\":\"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive & Aggressive - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-16T13:53:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-24T22:08:09+00:00\",\"description\":\"There are two types of investors: aggressive investors and defensive investors. Both are good strategies. Read more about them here.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1920,\"caption\":\"The Top 4 Habits of Millionaires You Need to Know\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive &#038; Aggressive\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"description\":\"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":74,\"caption\":\"Shortform Books\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\",\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e9aea3c95254368e6bf388b046b35bacb82e4167f4c62c0813620e3a4ec51126?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e9aea3c95254368e6bf388b046b35bacb82e4167f4c62c0813620e3a4ec51126?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Carrie Cabral\"},\"description\":\"Carrie has been reading and writing for as long as she can remember, and has always been open to reading anything put in front of her. She wrote her first short story at the age of six, about a lost dog who meets animal friends on his journey home. Surprisingly, it was never picked up by any major publishers, but did spark her passion for books. Carrie worked in book publishing for several years before getting an MFA in Creative Writing. She especially loves literary fiction, historical fiction, and social, cultural, and historical nonfiction that gets into the weeds of daily life.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/carrie\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive & Aggressive - Shortform Books","description":"There are two types of investors: aggressive investors and defensive investors. Both are good strategies. Read more about them here.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive & Aggressive","og_description":"There are two types of investors: aggressive investors and defensive investors. Both are good strategies. Read more about them here.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/","og_site_name":"Shortform Books","article_published_time":"2021-01-16T13:53:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-01-24T22:08:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1920,"url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Carrie Cabral","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Carrie Cabral","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/"},"author":{"name":"Carrie Cabral","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56"},"headline":"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive &#038; Aggressive","datePublished":"2021-01-16T13:53:53+00:00","dateModified":"2021-01-24T22:08:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/"},"wordCount":359,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg","keywords":["The Intelligent Investor"],"articleSection":["Business","Management","Money"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/","name":"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive & Aggressive - Shortform Books","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2021-01-16T13:53:53+00:00","dateModified":"2021-01-24T22:08:09+00:00","description":"There are two types of investors: aggressive investors and defensive investors. Both are good strategies. Read more about them here.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg","width":2560,"height":1920,"caption":"The Top 4 Habits of Millionaires You Need to Know"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-investors\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Two Types of Investors: Defensive &#038; Aggressive"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","name":"Shortform Books","description":"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Shortform Books","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","width":500,"height":74,"caption":"Shortform Books"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56","name":"Carrie Cabral","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e9aea3c95254368e6bf388b046b35bacb82e4167f4c62c0813620e3a4ec51126?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e9aea3c95254368e6bf388b046b35bacb82e4167f4c62c0813620e3a4ec51126?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Carrie Cabral"},"description":"Carrie has been reading and writing for as long as she can remember, and has always been open to reading anything put in front of her. She wrote her first short story at the age of six, about a lost dog who meets animal friends on his journey home. Surprisingly, it was never picked up by any major publishers, but did spark her passion for books. Carrie worked in book publishing for several years before getting an MFA in Creative Writing. She especially loves literary fiction, historical fiction, and social, cultural, and historical nonfiction that gets into the weeds of daily life.","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/carrie\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/money-outsiders-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23068"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25052,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23068\/revisions\/25052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}