Hello Amine,
Thank you for what you have written above. I especially like you highlighting that people can speculate without that being a negative endeavor. My own views, now revealed, post serving as moderator, are:
1. The future is unknowable for both the investor and the speculator.
2. Money may be made both investing and speculating.
3. Investing and speculating are essentially the same activity: risking current capital for the hope for more in the future.
4. Investing puts the greater proportion of mental responsibility on left-brain capabilities. Whereas, speculation puts the greater proportion of mental responsibility on right-brain capabilities.
5. Those undertaking the activity described in step #3 should identify what are their personal strengths, then they should develop tools that exalt their consciousness so that they are more effective as either investors or speculators.
6. Most of the differences between investing and speculating are easily described using common frameworks of different return expectations, risk tolerances, and investment time horizon preferences.
I actually really liked every panelist's contributions to the discussion. I liked Hagstrom's Cartesian grid of intelligent/unintelligent investing/speculating. I also liked Harold and Tom's emphasizing the relativistic aspects of the discussion.
For Harold, he emphasized that behavioral biases negatively effect capital allocations vis-a-vis return, risk, and temporal differences. I would point out that there is no reason to think that these behavioral biases would more effect any category of the intelligent/unintelligent investor/speculator framework.
For Tom, he thought that different market environments distorted notions of investing and speculating. I would argue that there is an absolute definition for these words and that is the value in having the discussion, so that when the market environment relatively distorts the absolute definitions then investors and speculators can better characterize the environment, then use this as decision making information.
I also really liked your emphasizing the importance of being honest with oneself and others. Well said!
With smiles!
Jason