Buy and Hold is an investment strategy in which stocks are bought and then held for a long period, regardless of the market's fluctuations. The buy and hold approach to investing in stocks rests upon the assumption that in the very long-term (over the course of, say, 10 or 20 years) stock prices will go up, but the average investor doesn't know what will happen tomorrow.  The logic behind the idea is that in a capitalist society the economy will keep expanding, so profits will keep growing and both stock prices and stock dividends will increase as a result. There may be short term fluctuations, due to business cycles or rising inflation, but in the long term these will be smoothed out and the market as a whole will rise.