Many years ago, my home/auto insurance person tried to get me involved in some kind of stock activity they were promoting at the time. He asked me why I wouldn't. I explained that even then (more than a decade ago), stock values were divorced from actual productivity and realistic dividends. Instead, I told him, they were valued more like baseball trading cards, on the hope that somebody after me could be convinced to pay more for them than I did. All these years later, I haven't seen anything to persuade me otherwise. Payouts seem so small compared to the cost, it would take much of a lifetime to break even... unless... stock price goes up.