A Philosophical Debate.....the GOP's ideology

[Xavier_Onassis]

I am aware of kickstarter, but I think it is the sort of investment that is mostly inappropriate for me at my age

Most of the money in the stock market does not fund anything much. When I buy  a stock in some company, the money rarely goes to the company, it goes to a previous owner, who bought it from some other previous owner. The only way that my buying the stock can help the comp[any is if the stock increases in price, and then the company issuing the stock can sell at a higher price.  The real purpose of Wall Street is to provide a market to buy and sell already issued stock.

One mutual fund I own is an Exchange Traded fund called ishares NASDAQ Biotechnology. It was first offered at $100 a share in 2001.Now it is selling for $364 per share.
It owns a bunch of biotech companies that sell shares on the NASDAQ.

I imagine that most of the stocks it owns have been traded dozens of times.

[Plane]

I am aware of kickstarter, but I think it is the sort of investment that is mostly inappropriate for me at my age

Well yeah, this is true . Most kickstarter payoffs are in product or discounts to be redeemed in purchase of product. Very few kickstarters are intended to produce profit for investors

Most of the money in the stock market does not fund anything much. When I buy  a stock in some company, the money rarely goes to the company, it goes to a previous owner, who bought it from some other previous owner. The only way that my buying the stock can help the comp[any is if the stock increases in price, and then the company issuing the stock can sell at a higher price.  The real purpose of Wall Street is to provide a market to buy and sell already issued stock.

One mutual fund I own is an Exchange Traded fund called ishares NASDAQ Biotechnology. It was first offered at $100 a share in 2001.Now it is selling for $364 per share.
It owns a bunch of biotech companies that sell shares on the NASDAQ.

I imagine that most of the stocks it owns have been traded dozens of times.

   As a stockholder you are a part owner , most companies own some of themselves and some owners are actually buying mutual funds so that their ownership is so distributed that the practical owner is the fund manager.

   A company that needs to start or expand benefits by selling shares so that the main benefit to the company is getting money up front. After the company sells a part of itself the buyer is in a small way a partner.

   A lot of companies have policies intended to prevent stock prices from falling too far, or when the price is low enough the company might buy a lot of its own stock.

   

[Xavier_Onassis]

The fund manager is the one that votes the shares. My reason to invest in mutual funds is to make money for myself. I buy and sell them in the same way I do socks.
When the sock has a hole in it and is no longer comfortable, I throw it away and buy another pair. When a fund no longer is the best way to make profit, I sell it and buy another.