To expand on what beagle said: 1) owning stocks gives you some legal rights; in particular, management cannot spend the earnings as they wish (though in practi

To expand on what beagle said: 1) owning stocks gives you some legal rights; in particular, management cannot spend the earnings as they wish (though in practice interests are rarely well-aligned). Also, if you control enough shares you might be able to make the company pay dividends. 2) more importantly, stocks tend to be more liquid than baseball cards. Though I'm sure there are counterexamples. :-)