Originally Posted by
fosters
You can't go to the company that you just bought a share from and trade in your stock for money, and you certainly don't get an equal share of their profits at the end of the day (and don't point out dividends, paying $80/share for some oil stock and getting $0.50 in dividends from it is hardly cost effective
That's where your P/E ratio comes in. The amount of money you are willing to invest to get $1 of profit. Yes you are absolutely buying a piece of the company and yes you get a piece of the profit but only your share of it. If a company has millions and millions of shares you won't get much. You can play it as a gamble or can decide to purchase and sit on it for the rest of time and just collect the profits. They are there just smaller. I paid for college off Boeing and Wal-Mart. Should Boeing get the 767 tanker bit with the Airforce I might just be able to retire a little early
I only own three stocks though. Boeing, Wal-mart, and XJT(just 200shares). The real money is in ETFs. I've pulled 19% this year on EWA and EWJ. Highly recommended and
www.morningstar.com should you want a great research source.