Many people get confused: they think we are trading the actual companies themselves, that the pieces of paper we are trading, investing, owning, are some sort of redemptive right, a coupon that will give you certain cents off, or an ownership right that will allow you to have a chunk of the brick and mortar if not the cash in the treasury of the joint; untrue. These are, in the end, simply pieces of paper, to be bought, sold, or manipulated up and down by those with more capital than others . . . the fundamentals of the company play only a part in what moves the stock up or down.
