BTW, I do not have a problem with public ownership of companies, but the current system protects Wall St from competition. We have new technology that should allow companies to issue shares without involving Wall St. Clear out the dead wood laws that prevent them from doing so and protect Wall St from competition.

Saint Ayn was a CAPITALIST. Capitalists borrow money by taking out loans, selling bonds, and selling shares of ownership. These funds build factories, buy equipment, and hire workers. These people are called PRODUCERS. Is it possible that some people on this site read Atlas Shrugged and missed this? Or, do we have a cadre of Soros-funded trolls sowing disinformation?

Going public is often a dream of people in a business. Perhaps in the same position I would have done so, but its likely I would have voted against it because of what I know about the market. I would have voted to expand without a public offering and not give Wall St a chance to manipulate my company. Management often make actions to satisfy Wall St analysts that are counter productive to long term welfare of the business.

It was the owners of Amazon that voted to make Amazon a public corporation. That gave it the capital for explosive growth which benefitted all the new owners (the stock holders) and society.

That's the theory, not practice.
Share prices are continually manipulated to destroy the value and wrest control of small caps from their owners.
Amazon could easily exist as a large private company without trading shares at all. Wall St hates private companies because they can't easily steal control from the owners.

Stock prices are the free market trying to determine present or future value of a company in a world of continuous political chaos. This is done by trading shares. How much capital a business using stock shares can use, spend or borrow on production and growth is mostly determined by the stock price. For these companies, without this capital, there is no company and no production.
Without people trading shares, today’s hugely successful, productive and innovative corporation called, Amazon would not exist, thus not produce anything.

See what?

See above

Trading shares produces nothing and does nothing to finance companies. Investing in companies has nothing to do with the current stock market- its a complete sham to hide the ongoing looting by Wall Street. If it was about long term investments in new small enterprises without manipulation by Wall Street to destroy those very enterprises, I would be very supportive. It isn't. I'm not. Wall St has a virtual monopoly on company financing, thanks to government that claims to protect widows and orphans, but is really assuring Wall Street has no competition and can cheat their own customers.

Stocks and the market provide the capital to run and grow the businesses. Image that no one traded Amazon stock because they all thought it would produce nothing.
Disclaimer: I’ve never owned Amazon stock

Meanwhile this produces nothing whatsoever. Produce something instead of feeding a system that is rigged to reward non-producers.

What is that based upon?

If one waits long enough, there will always be a calamity. Meanwhile, take prudent precautions. Fivedollargold mentors his neophyte investors to always keep some cash and diversify beyond just stocks and bonds. Historically, the best day to buy stocks is Monday, and to buy, Friday. Screen for stocks with Price to Sales ratio < 1.5 and a PEG ratio < 2.0. (Not hard and fast rules, but a good starting point.) Homework should include things in the news as well as trends. For example, new tax policy, regulatory reform, and the "Trumpcycle," that is, buy when one of the President's comments sends the Dow Jones Industrial average down 250+ points and sell when his statements send it up 300+. (Or pick your own numbers.) With regard to trends, a big one is cloud computing, which includes cloud storage and data analytics. Examples of such are CRM, AMZN, BOX, WDAY, and even MSFT. $5Au is a fan of index funds,too, especially for retirement accounts, and for those who lack the time or inclination to do their own research. Disclaimer: Fivedollargold may hold long positions in any stock mentioned here, and assumes no responsibility for financial actions taken by interested readers. His comments are for educational and informational use only.

Including dividends, historically stocks average approximately a 10% return per year.

The PEG ratio takes into account growth as well as PE. It allows one to compare apples and oranges. Private companies have no stock price, thus no PE unless it goes public.

plus, saving 10% on your purchases is relatively easy to do, and it means you dont have to make as much money and therefore pay as much income tax and sales tax.

I think that such a consumer strike is the only peaceful way with any chance of regaining liberty for the people. It is almost the only thing left that people can legally do.

These days that happens when a county tries to free itself of the debt slavery of international banking. Then the banksters destroy the currency value. Its a protection racket. If the country agrees to be enslaved by letting banksters control them the currency values aren't manipulated into the toilet. They keep paying protection and the currency slowly declines instead. (All imo.) Then there is the occasional trader who exploits weakness to excess like Soros did with the pound.

In a very competitive field, they spend a lot more, take a lot more risks and are generally better able to pick the lower buys and higher sells as well as the better stocks, then those who don’t.

It's even worse than that when it comes to small cap companies. The wall st financiers drive the prices down at will to gain shares cheaply and to force violations of debt agreements in cooperation with banksters. That forces companies to raise more equity funding at low prices and screws everyone who had participated in earlier share issues. It also results in private placements that transfer control of a company and all it's property to Wall St or larger competitors.

I think that the people will trigger it by cutting back on consumption and investing. They did that to some extent in 2008-9 and the govt was panicked over a deflationary spiral. For what its worth, I havent really been buying as much as I did before- kind of preparing in a way for some sort of collapse. I think everyone could cut back 10% on their purchases and not affect their lifestyle very much. 10% shrinkage in the economy would probably be enough to trigger a deflation in itself. Its all a house of cards anyway.

I agree that the fed would do this to stretch the bubble a little longer. The problem comes in when people lose trust in value of the currency. Maybe they just issue a new currency and price IT and all the debt instruments and savings instruments at some fraction of the current currency value- in hopes people will think that the "new" currency wont depreciate as fast as the old one.

But arent these "investments" basically relying on estimates of where the emotional buying or selling frenzies will take place. It seems based less on logic than on crowd emotion.

ˆt has always bothered me that the stock price has little relation to the actual value of the company when it sells at 17 times annual earnings when a private company might sell for 5 times earnings. It strikes me as a gambling thing at that point.

The big boys rig it so it benefits them at the expense of the people who dont have the VERY fast price quote systems, and who dont have the inside information that they do. The govt tries to level the playing field, but doesnt do that good a job at it.

And the Fed would cut down a lot of trees and do what has been done in the past... throw a lot of paper fiat at it until people calmed down and accepted their lies.