What is investing?
Investing is allocating resources (such as capital) with the expectation of generating a profit. This can include using money to fund and kickstart a business or buying land with the goal of reselling it later at a higher price. In the financial markets, this typically involves investing in financial instruments with the hopes of selling them later at a higher price.
The expectation of a return is core to the concept of investment (this is also known as ROI). As opposed to trading, investing typically takes a longer-term approach to wealth accrual. The goal of an investor is to build wealth over a long period of time (years, or even decades). There are plenty of ways to do that, but investors will typically use fundamental factors to find potentially good investment opportunities.
Due to the long-term nature of their approach, investors usually don’t concern themselves with short-term price fluctuations. As such, they will typically stay relatively passive, without worrying too much about short-term losses.