What is the point of having stocks?

Congratz, you just noticed stock market is a form of gambling.

>what is the point of doing something that makes you money

are you retarded? are you asking for a philosophical reason? what exactly is your question? why do people want to make money?

>You're just betting that a company will perform well

well yeah

So basically this is nothing more than betting on horses?

As I see it the stock itself has no value?
That's not what I'm asking... I understand why the price of the stock would go up as it would be valued higher if the company performed well

But what is the POINT of a stock for the buyer? Owning a part in a company makes no sense, what makes this any different than buying a cryptocurrency?

The art of becoming a better investor (longterm holder) or daytrader (short term holder) is reducing the amount of gambling involved in the market. The more you learn about why the value of a company's share might rise or fall, the better off you are. There are plenty of newsites for investors/traders that will tell them what's going on in the business world, and it's from there that you might want to get the info you need. Another method of reducing the element of chance is learning more about charts. Specifically, see if you can find a general pattern to the rise and fall of share-value, and buy/sell accordingly.

hmm lets see, which one would you rather invest into

>a legit registered company that actually produces products and services

or

>random digital meme unregistered company made from virgin neets from the internet that might one day be able to produce something useful at some point in the future

cryptos are more like penny stocks

>What is the point of having stocks?

For investing in the company and hoping in the future the value of the company and its growth.

if you buy up all the crypto you own nothing. If you buy up all the shares you own the company. that's the difference

I don't think you understand his questions.. Where in is the value of a stock, you own a fraction of the company - but you don't get anything from any money the company makes. The question is why would people be interested in buying the stock in a company, if they don't gain anything from how well the company perform - other than other people will want to have that piece of paper that you have.
Is it just stamp-collection?

>but you don't get anything from any money the company makes

yes you do. The more money the company makes the higher its stock price will go therefore you get more money. Also there are dividents which you get fixed income as well

It's a good question, and I've wondered the same. It's almost like non-dividend paying stocks are like trading cards. After the IPO and the money's been raised, what is the real value to an investor, other than greater fool theory?

I suppose the value is realized if/when the company is acquired, or if someone wants to have voting rights or even accumulate a controlling share.

This is not always true actually

seriously wtf are you talking about? companies aren't crypto, they PRODUCE products and services, this is not a zero-sum game. When you buy a stock you give money to the company, the company then invests those money and makes profit, that profit then will increase the price of the stock which in turn gives you back the profit from your investment

yea.. it is probably tied to having something tangible as said.
Like if you own 1% of Statoil, you own 1% of the bricks, rigs and ships. Which has some value in itself..

the more percentage you own then you have more control over the company. if you own like 0.05% then its obviously nothing, if you own like 10%+ you can even get a seat in the company director board, if you own more than 50% then you can even call shots

Once you have enough shares don't you get to be the guy who owns the company and then get killed by your ex wife who owns the other half of the company? That sounds some kind of value, even as the kind of dude who owns very little because all you need to sell to people that want to buy the company is a generous offer. I don't really know what I'm saying I haven't slept in 30 hours.

It's when I read threads such as these that I realize why Bitcoin and other cyptos is a thing.

This is also why I realize that Bitcoin will crash and burn and Veeky Forums will return to normalcy, eventually.

Exactly. When there's no more idiots to buy the stock from you at a higher price what's there left to do with the stock? You own part of a company but you don't get (a significant) amount of their income, not all companies pay dividends and the company doesn't have to buy the stock back from you.. so what's the real value of the stock

So much misunderstanding in here.

"I suppose the value is realized if/when the company is acquired, or if someone wants to have voting rights or even accumulate a controlling share."

That is literally the only thing that separates crypto from non-dividend stocks. A company making more profit does not make any fundamental difference to the value of their stocks, aside from in the potential of an acquisition etc. You might argue that the psychology around 'real companies making real things' or whatever gives the stocks more lasting value, but that is just saying that people have collectively decided that stocks are a reasonable investment. The same thing could happen with crypto.

So then explain it to me

You already know the answer OP. Common stock is literally just a corporate tool for raising capital. Help u corporate masters goyim and maybe you'll make some cash too if u super good.

Well fggt it's simple , once you own a shares of a company you actually own a part of it meaning their ips, their building or whatever the fuck they own. You are a legal owner of those assets. And if the company goes bad guess what you still fucking own those assets. So you can sell those assets and try to recoup your loses. You understand ? It's a legally bounding "document" it may be virtual now but it's still proof of ownership. So if a faggot ceo does a bad job and runs the company to the ground you still own all their assets and as investors you can actually take over a company if you see it turn what all investors think is the wrong direction you can fuck anyone in that company. This is mostly valuable for big investors. Having shares means you have power over that company.

are you dumb? are you saying that a company will stop having growth forever? then you obviously bought a shitty company

and companies often buy back their stocks (if they are actually good companies)

I reached the same conclusion after I thought a bit about it.

The other way of looking at it: I can buy stock and have goyim make money for me while i do nothing

Which is not to say that I think it is likely to happen with crypto, because that difference (acquisition / ownership) is big enough that it will probably play a large enough role in investment psychology to prevent (many) cryptos from being long term investments. But of course there are plenty of cryptos that are building models where the token does have inherent value (for specific services) and/or realisable gains (dividends on exchange fees etc). These will be the coins that survive the bubble.

Of course I get why someone would want a share at 30 dollars, what I and the user you replied don't understand is why it has inherit value in the first place?

It isn't worth anything unless someone else buys it from you hoping it will go higher. You can't trade your 1% ownership for 1% of the companys assets. Why is it worth anything? Or is it just when it goes too low someone would buy 51%?

no they aren't you dumbass, thats called a corporate bond. Companies can also sell corporate bonds which basically you lent them money for a fixed rate and you don't actually own any shares

Why didn't you guys say that before? If a company buys back it stocks then I understand the value of a stock because there will always be someone to buy it back from your if a company does well.
That's why I'm asking. That was all I was wondering.

This, the level of retardation in this thread is mind boggling, the question on my mind is with fucking idiots like this how long can the crypto bubble go on for? Probably a lot longer then any rationality.

its called a stock buyback and companies do it all the time, but obviously only good companies that know they have a future

The big difference is that stocks are a part of an actual company. If you own 1 % of a company then 1 % of all its profits and assets belongs to you. If it pays out dividends or not doesn't change a shit.

The thing is that it doesn't actually work that way. You are not a legal owner of assets with most stocks. You have no right to go in and take 1% of their shit and sell it. You may have voting rights over directors etc, but that is not the same as being the legal owner of the company assets. As I understand it.

that's just the theory, in practice you own a piece of paper lol

under certain conditions you can become the owner of the assets, like bankruptcy. Then you could end up with tangible goods in your hand. So your money will be tied to actual things, rather than just paper.

that depends on HOW MUCH stock you own. if you own like 200 dollar shares then you obviously won't have many rights, if you own like 20% of the company you would probably be allowed to be in the company too

Even though you have a point, you're also obviously salty nocoiners driving your own agenda.

Cryptos aren't comparable to stocks, they have value in the same way gold does. Is gold overvalued? I think so, yet the bubble hasn't burst. The value of a currency is what people make it. Gold can act as currency because it has unique physical properties, crypto can act as currency because it's perfect money. Before you bring up muh bitcoin fees, actual usable cryptos such as XLM exist.

No, you are wrong.

"Although ownership of 50% of shares does result in 50% ownership of a company, it does not give the shareholder the right to use a company's building, equipment, materials, or other property. This is because the company is considered a legal person, thus it owns all its assets itself. This is important in areas such as insurance, which must be in the name of the company and not the main shareholder."

Unless you own over 50% of voting shares you basically have no right to take anything out of a company. If the 51% decide something, tough shit for you. If the company collapses, it sells all its assets, pays back loans, and then what is left may be split between share holders. What is left is normally nothing.

Companies need money.

By buying a "share" of the company, you are giving them money in the immediate term so that they can (hopefully) use that money to make more money, hence driving the value of the company up and increasing how much your "share" is worth.

The expectation is that one day the company will pay dividends.

if you have majority of shares and votes you can vote to kick out the CEO and take his place

yea you get some legal rights, but at the end of the day it mostly has value because of speculation, supply/demand. The only real difference from crypto is there is less risk involved because people have learned the patterns of how it plays out

That only works on the IPO phase if the company doesn't keep a part of its shares, otherwise after that it's just people throwing the hot potatoes around between themselves. Not saying stocks aren't clearly worthwhile though.

Okay? They are both forms of raising capital. Corporate bonds usually have semi annual coupon payments though so you are guaranteed to get something in return, unlike stock which is what OP was asking about. Also if you want to be a smartass than maybe you should mention how banks from whom the corporation is borrowing money from typically dishes out the bonds not the corporation directly to the bondholder.

I wouldn't limit it to IPO's, alot of smallcap miners work this way. They need money for exploration. I'm sure there are tech companies like this that need money for R&D as well.

Bitcoin and gold isn't comparable. This is just another meme like Bitcoin = Stocks that retards tell themselves to rationalize that they own Bitcoin.

A non-dividend paying stock is basically a company themed shitcoin.

You are arguing like a sjw faggot, the cryptos that provide real value like stocks that provide real value and services will survive.
One thing about crypto is it is almost impossible to value because nothing of real value is being produced, it value is all hype.

One can lock at a stock,the assets of the company, the market that the company is in, revenue,debt,expected earnings, blah blah and one can make a estimated guess where the value will be in the future. Impossible with cryptic, if you have a way tell me.
I am in BAT, because it is one of the few cruptos I think I can estimate the value of.

Yes you can. Which is why almost no companies allow this situation to develop. And in the case of everyday investing (i.e. you are not a venture capital firm) it is utterly irrelevant, aside from the possibility of an acquisition targeting shareholders. Which as I said originally, is the only real difference between crypto and stocks.

This is a false dichotomy. Fact is that you own 1 % of the company. But you can't do as you please with the company, because there's another 99 % to consider. If you owned 100 % of the company then you can do what the fuck you want with it.

>Bitcoin and gold isn't comparable
Fantastic argument. Tell me why a currency you can own yourself without govt / bank regulation, delays and transfer fees is not the perfect money and should be worthless?

Do companies also sell their stocks for money, like coins?

I own bitcoin and stocks because i've noticed the patterns in the way it trades and understand the investor psychology enough to profit (so far)

Amazing that people think wasting electricity to solve math problems is a store of value. We live in the age of fucking idiots.

>One can lock at a stock,the assets of the company, the market that the company is in, revenue,debt,expected earnings, blah blah and one can make a estimated guess where the value will be in the future

In which case you are still just purely speculating about the psychology of future potential buyers of the stock. Because that particularly game has been going on for a while, it is possible to do this with reasonable certainty maybe, but it still doesn't mean anything.

It is entirely possible that at some point something causes every assumption built into the capitalist system to be re-evaluated, and as a result everyone decides that existing companies are 50% overvalued. And 50% of the stock value disappears. The companies will still be there, making money, owning bricks or whatever, but that is irrelevant.

well not if the original owner of the company only puts 49% up for sale

>the cryptos that provide real value like stocks that provide real value and services will survive.
Are you trying to say utility tokens will survive? Those are mostly the ones NOT surviving. The token economics are a big fat mess and owning them doesn't give you any ownership of their respective company.

>One thing about crypto is it is almost impossible to value because nothing of real value is being produced, it value is all hype.
A perfect currency is being produced, something you can own yourself and still use digitally. Cryptos also don't inherently bleed value like fiat does. But go ahead, keep coping.

It's woefully obvious that you think BTC equals crypto and are salty about missing out.

Captain obvious.
Reality is uncertain and unpredictable, good work there Einstein.

dude this is Veeky Forums nobody on this board gets the logic behind such complex argument

that happens all the time, they are called recessions and depressions. eventually it recovers though just like crypto because the potential is there to make gains better than real estate bonds, cds

Yes, this process is called 'starting a company'. It is how many people made money! They made millions doing it!!!!! But it is not relevant for comparing investing a few $k into stocks as opposed to crypto, aside from, as I said originally, the possibility of acquisition. If someone wants to take control of a company, then they will pay you for your 1%. And that is pretty much the only time when it will really be worth anything at all. This is the only underlying value of (non-dividend, voting) shares. But it is a value for sure.

So at best you can buy 49% of the stocks meaning you will never ever have any saying in what the company does correct?

The incentive for companies to perform better is because people will buy their stocks in case they need more money in the future, but what can one do with a stock if they only own 0.0001% of a company?

>whats a market
>what is apreciation
>why is the point of life buying low and selling high?

Find out on the next episode of dragon's balls p

Yep exactly. The number of bricks and ships a company owns is entirely irrelevant when there is a stock market crash. The value of those bricks hasn't changed. Just the psychology of the investors. The only reason it always recovers is, again, purely psychological. Nothing to do with the inherent value of a real world company. My point is that the recovery is not a built in inevitability, just a feature of our current culture. Which might change.

You can make money! The value of any financial product is in the risk/reward profile

Well I think anybody with 49% could always threaten to dump.

Must be the least biased Veeky Forums poster I've seen in a good while

human nature doesn't change though, greed/fear is fundamental

>The incentive for companies to perform better is because people will buy their stocks in case they need more money in the future, but what can one do with a stock if they only own 0.0001% of a company?
The incentive for a company to perform is to make money. That won't change regardless of whether the stocks are properly valued by the market or not.

That's not an answer you fuck. I know people buy it so it appreciates in value but that doesn't explain why it appreciates in value or why it has value. People say crypto is valueless but at least it has a (pretend) usecase. Stocks literally have none.

Is it just a universally agreed upon rule that if a company does well it stock value increases? If they have no use other than to go up how could that be the case? There had to be a better explanation as to why it holds inherit value aside from appreciation

My point was clearly not obvious enough, as many people here seem to believe that owning shares in a company is the same thing as owning a percentage of everything that the company owns. Company assets or profits are not in any sense a guarantee of stock market value. As opposed to investing in commodities or land, where the value of the investment is actually backed up by something tangible.

A perfect currency is being produced, something you can own yourself and still use digitally. Cryptos also don't inherently bleed value like fiat does. But go ahead, keep coping.

I not a fan of government created fiat and do think in an ideal world digital currency would rule. However there is a thing called reality, governments are not going to let another currency out do or over take them. Look at the past at what as happened to people that challenged the global banking system. You have Hitler, Saddam, gaddafi. Remember the internet is a government creation, and the code Bitcoin was written on was produced by the nsa.

There's not much point of it though since often there is a group that has 51% majority. So that 49% is pretty much meaningless

I answered this. If you own voting rights in a company, and someone wants to control that company, then they might have to buy your rights. And that is worth something.

>that doesn't explain why it appreciates in value or why it has value

stock shares have value based on the fundamentals of the company

>revenue
>profit
>growth rate
>media hype

investors buy or sell based on these statistics of the company, if the company has record sales this year then everyone is gonna buy the shares and increase its value, if they have a bad year with very little profits or sales then investors will sell their shares and drop its value. Its not just random people buying and selling like crypto, serious investors study the fundamentals of companies before buying or selling

>as many people here seem to believe that owning shares in a company is the same thing as owning a percentage of everything that the company owns.
It is.
>Company assets or profits are not in any sense a guarantee of stock market value.
It doesn't matter what other people are prepared to pay for your stocks, you still own 1 % of all assets and profits.

Agreed that greed and fear are pretty hardwired evolutionarily. But the current game is not very old in the broad perspective (a few centuries at most), and shareholder based capitalism is not an inevitable result of human psychology, just a profitable (for some) manifestion of it at our particular point in history.

Bitcoin have value because it's the first asset to have actual, absolute, complete scarcity.
It's also the first mover.
It is completely trustless.
It's finally the most decentralised and so the safest to any fundamental change to any traits mentionned above.

All others cryptos are controlled by a small number of people.

Bitcoin is not, not for lack of trying, the latest attack being beecash by the chinks and the kikes.
There will be more attacks in the future, and each attack will reinforce with another very important and crucial value that is not fundamental : trust.
Bitcoin have been tested in fire, and survived everything.

This is not for nothing that the meme "there's bitcoin and shitcoins, period" float around : because, until proof of the contrary ( PROOF, not semantics, not white papers, not pilpul, actual real-world precedents ), that's the complete Truth.

Yeah I understand, you buy low and sell high when a company performs well. But what if there's no more people willing to buy the sock at the valued price? What can one do with a stock that doesn't pay dividends then? What can one doe with stock worth 0.001% of a company when they don't get payed for it?

Is it all just in the hopes that someone will buy the stock from your at some point? or the company buys it bacK?

>I not a fan of government created fiat and do think in an ideal world digital currency would rule. However there is a thing called reality, governments are not going to let another currency out do or over take them. Look at the past at what as happened to people that challenged the global banking system. You have Hitler, Saddam, gaddafi. Remember the internet is a government creation, and the code Bitcoin was written on was produced by the nsa.
You're not wrong, but governments also can profit. They're making big bank with each winning trader who cashes out, and they can improve their infrastructure with crypto as well.

Part of the reason why I favor XLM over any other crypto is that it doesn't try to overtake fiat. You can create backed tokens representing fiat on their network. That's the best thing we can have in practice. Fiat and crypto co-existing in the same decentralized network.

And, this is idealist not realist, but it's sickening how blatantly governments are working against their people. Even in the current world we live in a world-wide crypto ban would be a new low for govts and I don't see that happening easily.

>Company assets or profits are not in any sense a guarantee of stock market value.

This is true, the stock market is not perfect. If you see an imbalance of the price of a stock the market provides the opportunity to buy or short. And the market is relatively good at pricing things.

another big difference between crypto and stocks is that society/government has agreed that stocks add value to society/the economy by giving money to corporations to help them scale.

crypto is still unknown in that regard, it might get banned , taxed heavily, or severely regulated if it starts to affect the larger economy

>But what if there's no more people willing to buy the sock at the valued price?

what do you mean there are no more people to buy stock? are you saying suddenly all investors will die or cash out and go home and there will be no one to buy? lmao

if a company performs well there will always be people buying it

This has got to bait, no one is this retarded. Let me break it down for you user since it seems you've never taken an intro to economics class.
>why does a stock from a company have value?
A stock is a share of ownership of a company so if the company is profitable and growing it should follow the a part of it will also grow.
Hence the value of a stock is the value of the company divided up into parts.

oke I understand now

It's all one big ponzi scheme thank you

Do you own any? If so then try to realise some of those assets or profts. You will quickly find that you can't. Because you don't own a percentage of the company assets, you own a percentage of the company. Let's make it simple:
1) You buy 1% of a new company
2) For five years they make profit, pay no dividends, and at the end of 5 years they have made $1B in profits, and own $500M in assets
3) Throughout this period, nobody notices how great the company is, and it is constantly getting FUDed or whatever, and the share price never rises
4) They fuck up / the market changes for their services
5) They go bankrupt
6) They sell all their assets to pay outstanding debts
7) You get nothing.

At what point in that process could you have realised anthing at all from your 1% in the company?

Nigga what

its a ponzi only if the company doesn't produce anything (like most cryptos), if you invest in a dildo manufacturing company then the value of your stock is based on the tangible production of dildos

it's basically a promise that traditional investorfags keep telling themselves that if one day the company ever pays dividends, it would put the fair market price of the stock at roughly x
it's all just a stupid game everyone agrees to play by and it works because everyone agrees to play
obviously i am not talking about the entire market, but nonvoting non dividend paying stocks where an entrenched group or individual owns a controlling stake

How is bitcoin scarce? It is math, math is free, and it takes a shit load of energy to do the math to run the bitcoin network any new crypto can be created. Bitcoin can not exist without power and the internet.