That's only speculation to the extent that any investment is speculative.
I don't play the market ... I buy mutual funds for my Roth IRA, and I sit on them. And sit on them. And sit on them. But if you were to reduce my actions down to the bare basics, it would sound just like the initial comment: "you buy some stock, believing it will go up, so you can sell it at a profit at a later date". Just because my window is 30 years, and not 30 days, it doesn't change the basic mechanics or principles.
Really? Given the statement above, which boils down to: "buy low and sell high", what's the difference? Generally, market microstructure tells us there are speculators and value investors, both serving a due purpose in the functioning of a market. Value investors are most adequately described as those who buy an asset below market value, rather than at or above market value. Both types of market participants are in it to make a profit.
The difference is, for the value investor, the selling part is optional. A company can repay its investors with dividends, liquidation (rare), being bought out... Often value investors end up selling to the market, but you have to break away from the mentality that buy low sell high is the point of "investing". If it is that way, then it's a zero-sum game, so why's it an important part of capitalism again?
Ignoring liquidation and acquisition, because they are rarely the goal of a value investor...
Dividends do repay investors, but the price always adjusts ex-dividend. A value investor is not happy owning a declining asset even if the dividend pays at regular intervals. They always look for capital appreciation and will, whenever they deem appropriate, convert unrealized gains into realized.
You seem to be referring to buy & hold. Taking the Dow as a market proxy, if you bought BEFORE June 1999, you are currently at break even... over 10 years later. Congratulations, you're strategy is working out perrrrfectly.
A value investor would not have bought a broad market index in 1999, where the P/E-10 was, IIRC, somewhere around 40!
I have to say I'm not particularly interested in discussing this with someone who thinks the classic value investing paradigm is comparable to buying and holding an index at the worst possible time.
That's speculation, not investing. I think it's important people understand the difference.