Ah....duh...that makes sense.
That's kind of at what I was driving....it seems like after the initial sale and the company gets the infusion of cash, the rest of it is people playing money games over meaningless pieces of paper....and I'm wrestling to understand how and why that affects life as it does.
Well, not really. You see, as a reward for you for buying/owning their stock the companies will often pay these things called dividends. Dividends are usually paid out based on the company's quarterly performance. Buying and holding some company stocks pay dividends higher than certificates of deposit - CD's.
Of course if the value of the stock goes down during that time and you sell, then you take a loss and not sure if you can claim that loss on your income taxes. I /think/ you can.
However, if you sell the stock and MAKE money, the IRS will be after some of THAT money.
And dividends get rolled back into the value of your money market fund or whatever method of 401K you may have.