Not quite. A (common) stock is nothing more than a certificate of ownership of part of a company. In theory, the value of that capital should increase over time, plus you hopefully get dividends regularly. Again - it’s ownership, so that means that you could, in principle, hold that instrument ‘forever’ (just like you would, say, a piece of land), never planning to sell it back, and therefore not giving a single f*ck about its current or future price.
Again: stock is property. Arguing that the only reason to invest in stocks is getting money out of it by selling later at a higher price would be like saying that people buy apartments/land/metals solely for future financial gain.
…and even if one doesn’t buy that argument, there’s the concept of hedging, which is far enough from the concept of speculation to consider it its opposite.
Isn’t all investment speculative in nature? Even fixed rates you are betting it will be better than the alternative.
Not quite. A (common) stock is nothing more than a certificate of ownership of part of a company. In theory, the value of that capital should increase over time, plus you hopefully get dividends regularly. Again - it’s ownership, so that means that you could, in principle, hold that instrument ‘forever’ (just like you would, say, a piece of land), never planning to sell it back, and therefore not giving a single f*ck about its current or future price.
You don’t invest in something because it’s price is expected to increase of you plan to never ever sell. This makes no sense.
It’s != its.
Again: stock is property. Arguing that the only reason to invest in stocks is getting money out of it by selling later at a higher price would be like saying that people buy apartments/land/metals solely for future financial gain.
…and even if one doesn’t buy that argument, there’s the concept of hedging, which is far enough from the concept of speculation to consider it its opposite.
People only but stocks because they expect to get more money from them than they spent.
And hedging is not the opposite of speculating, it’s a strategy for safer speculation.
You’re trying to make “invest= good, speculate= bad”, so anybody investing on the bad company has to be a speculator, not an investor.
No true Scotsman fallacy