[buttcoinslol]

The company is also a shareholder and can pay out dividends or buy back stock to increase the price. One pays you directly, and the other increases your stake by diluting the pool of outstanding shares. Both are direct results of actions taken by the corporation, and both create something new: cash and equity, respectively.

[andrewla]

I have trouble seeing what this has to do with my comment, which was specifically on the notion that investing money by buying a company's stock somehow helps the company, which is true only in the very narrow sense that I indicated.