The study attempts to delineate the demographic and lifestyle characteristics of active and passive investors in Malaysia. The two groups are compared using eight demographic, five psychographic, and five activity dimensions. The results indicate that there were significant differences in terms of gender, age, occupation, monthly personal income and monthly household income between the two investor groups. In terms of psychographic dimensions, active investors were more risk takers or innovative than passive investors. When the activity dimensions of the two groups were examined, significant differences were also found. Active investors were found to be more knowledge-seekers, outdoor-lovers and outgoing/entertainment lovers when compared to passive investors. The application of discriminant analysis reveals that certain variables are relatively more important than others, in discriminating between active and passive investors. With regards to level of importance, personal monthly income ranks the highest, followed by occupation and outgoing/entertainment lover dimension of activity items. Some marketing implications were also discussed.