Eli5: What value does a share of stock provide if the company doesn’t pay dividends?

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I understand that a share of stock represents a share of ownership in a company. But if dividends are not paid, what is the actual value of that stock? Why does it have value? The company making more money does not flow to me because I own the stock. So is it basically just like owning a baseball card in that if the player (company) does well more people want to collect (own) their cards (stock) and this the price goes up?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine you could own the entire Apple corporation today. The whole thing. Every employee now reports to you, you get to control everything it makes, all of the new research, all of the IP belongs to you, everything. That would be pretty great, wouldn’t it? How much would you pay to be able to do that?

Well, the consensus around the world seems to be that it’s worth about three trillion dollars to be able to do that. Divide that by the number of shares, and that’s what a share is worth.

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