Brb buy $10 million stock A
brb pay $1 million to spam newspapers "stock A rly good buy it redart"
Brb selling stock A next day for $100 million

Such weird concept tbh. Create a bunch of money from basically nothing.

For you to cash out, some peasant needs to buy your appreciated asset. Until then, its all bogus.

It's pretty neat. You don't really 'own' anything either. What is the asset? You can't go to Disney World and grab $120.02 worth of property despite 'owning' $120.02 worth of their stock. I can't have a Disney World security guard follow me around to provide security for me while I'm there.

What do you really 'own', always wondered that. You get a vote for the board of directors, but there is a different person(s) who nominates anyone for the board. Even the board you elect has a duty to the company, not you. Hell, unless I own a huge number of shares nobody cares about my vote anyway. They say it's fractional ownership of the corporation, but unless you own a large enough amount of shares to influence business decisions this is demonstrably not true.

Edit to add - forgot, but you don't get anything back for your 'asset' if the company goes bankrupt either -- After secured and unsecured claims are paid, then stockholders receive payment. More often than not, stockholders will not be repaid.

I believe we call that a pyramid scheme.

I bet your one share of Disney doesn't even get you into the park to inspect the company you are part owner of...

You own voting rights, which basically means if you own enough of them, you own the company, or at least can help steer the company.

Most stocks also pay a dividend, so at least you get in on the profit sharing.

All of this is true unless you own something like Google stock, which gets you zero dividends, zero voting rights, and zero ownership. Google stock really is a pyramid scheme in the truest sense.

Sometimes shares have votes. Sometimes they don't.

from investopedia...

Yeah sure, but you're only allowed to vote in the matters the company allows you to vote in. Not to mention that no individual, or likely group of individuals even given institutional investors, has any real voting power. Apple has 17 billion outstanding shares of stock. 4 institutional investors hold 20% of that, do you think that some coalition of angry individual shareholders is going to do anything? No. Your 'voting right' is nothing. Dividends just take away from the retained earnings of the company which are now paid out rather than used to enhance operations of the company - meaning you are lowering the value of your 'asset' by the dividend amount as well as the future earning potential of that dividend if the company had kept it.

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of money in the stock market, but you don't really own anything.

And yes, I realize institutional investors are each a 'group of individuals' as far as money goes, but do you think I can call Vanguard and ask them to tell Apple to use a non-proprietary phone charger for their next iphone?

Also this --Not to mention that, given corporate personhood, corporations are legally a person. A person cannot be owned. You can own a dog, for example, and are liable should it bite somebody. Are shareholders liable for corporate actions? Only if that action results in bankruptcy, and then only for the amount they are invested - because that amount is not your money anymore, it is the corporations money. You own nothing.

People naturally trade shares for money. The market just provides a structure to regulate the activity.

Here, you guys can laugh at my retardedness and misfortune

First ever stock was from the dutch company VOC, it was the first ever multinational company and the biggest company ever known in history.

Basically the first stocks were people funding ships to go to east india return with spices and make insane profits. But then some ships never returned because they wrecked/sunk. They thought of the brilliant idea to half invest in two ships so there is less risk. Eventually stocks (whole company) and later ofc index funds

Cliffs: richest guys ever known to man

It's not a gain or a loss unless you sell brah. Just hodl.

Thx, good advice. I think I'm going to not log in my Schwab account for a while. Couple years it'll be higher (I keep telling myself!)

so basically you just bought all the top stocks at there highest price point? sounds like an amazing strategy

I may suck at market timing, but in the long run, Jay Powell is gonna print a lot of money and my stocks are sure to go up.

They're all solid companies, not likely going anywhere in the next few years. I'm sure you'll do just fine. Literally should give zero ****s if those stocks went down one week or the next.