Fair question. If you buy a stock with the intention of making money from variations in the stock price, that is trading. If you buy a company with the intention of sharing the profit generated by that company, that is investing.
Further, because I consider the profit generated by a company I own to be mine, I have very specific thoughts on corporate investment. If a company like Tesla uses their profit to expand capacity and their margins are over 20%, I like that. I'd rather they invest in a likely 20% return than give me a dividend. If I need money, I'll just sell some of the stock. If a REIT buys another REIT that is making under 5% profit, I don't like that. I wouldn't invest my money in a REIT with under 5% total return. At that point, I need to consider if the REIT I own is in a position to improve the profit of the asset under purchase. If so, perhaps it's OK. Often, however, companies just want to get big for the sake of being big. I see it frequently. In these cases, I look to exit this position.
That's weird. I never think about investing is sharing in a company's profit. I always think investing is to profit in a company's stock price variation, solely in the up direction. A company's profit does indeed affect price but sometimes in the absence of profit, price goes up anyway because revenue goes up fast and the future is bright. I am not a big fan of dividends at the moment.
Indeed. I'm an outlier. I see traders as gamblers surfing an ocean of fluctuating stock prices. When I respond to a thread like this: My goal was to share the perspective of an investor. Specifically, I mean "investor" by my definition. Sure, few to no people will embrace my point of view but I am happy to give people the opportunity to see this point of view, in case they become interested one day.
Hi all. Just wanted to give you guys an update on how I am doing so far with stocks. Plug Powers is doing great. I reverent not buying more when I did the first time, but there’s room for purchase now still. So far this year I feel pretty good. Any thoughts? Advice? Thank you.
Hi. Because I was looking at the history of the stock on google and it looked interesting. I also think that with more electrical cars coming out, Plug Power may be really essential.
I plan to hold. I look for long term stocks. I don’t really understand trading yet so I rather buy nd hold for the future
