| "Can you provide me with some concrete examples of famous, high profile tech stocks like facebook and snapchat giving a "share of their current/future assets/profits of the business"" Yes. Facebook. Google. Microsoft. Amazon. --> A company does not need to pay dividends in order to 'return value to investors' <--- This is a common misunderstanding of valuation. --> Whether a company pays dividends or not is technically irrelevant <-- The only real relevance in 'share buybacks' is the ability of the corporation to generated yield from that cash, more than the investor could otherwise. I.E. A large, doddling company who is sitting on tons of cash, but generating very little yield, would be urged to pay dividends. Companies like Amazon, which can generate more yield from re-investing - should do that. Key point: stock ownership implies ownership of the assets - so whether it's in Amazon's bank account or in yours - it doesn't matter - if you own stock, you 'own' that money. The only question is - do you want Amazon to 'keep investing' (because they are good/bad at it) or do you want the money transferred to your account (because maybe you can do better). The increase in value of the stock is economically/technically the same thing as a 'dividend payment'. |