Are my purchases of stock, mutual funds, ETF's, and commodities investing, or speculation?
This depends on what your definition of the word is is. Strictly speaking, you are only investing in a company when you buy stock from them somehow.  This is usually done during an IPO or a secondary offering.  Or, if you are someone like Warren Buffet or an institutional investor, you strike a deal with the company to buy shares directly from them.  Otherwise, your money goes to someone else. Merriam-Webster defines speculate as 1b: to review something idly or casually and often inconclusively However, it also defines it as: 2: to assume a business risk in hope of gain; especially : to buy or sell in expectation of profiting from market fluctuations  The typical use of the term stock speculation vs stock investing involves definition 1b.  This alludes to the idea that little to no research was done about the stock.  This may be due to a lack of time, interest, knowledge, etc., or it may be due to a lack of information.  The former usually has a negative connotation.  The latter may have a negative connotation, though usually the connotation is one of greater risk. Strictly speaking, definition 2 includes investing as you define it along with investing in securities/commodities.