I can understand your point. We are so many layers removed these days with trading platforms and online brokerages that it's easy to forget that when you buy an

I can understand your point. We are so many layers removed these days with trading platforms and online brokerages that it's easy to forget that when you buy an equity, you are actually holding shares of a real company that produces real products, employs real people, and maybe most importantly, holds real assets. One of these assets is future cash flows and this is pretty much where the value of shares in a company come from. In any moment it seems like you're just buying thin air for money and selling that air later for (hopefully) more money. But that's the short-term view of it. In the long run you are taking a stake in a company that you hope as a whole will be worth more in the future than it is today. That stake gives you legal right of ownership to a percentage of that company and its cashflows. If it's a dividend paying company you collect regular profits from it as well.