Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

What drives the value of a stock? [duplicate]
For XOM if you were lucky enough to purchase on 20 Jan 16, at 73.18/share and sold on 15 July at 94.95 you would achieve a 29% return in six months.  Awesome.  You'd also get a dividend payment or two adding another percentage point per to your returns.   The one year chart for FB shows it increasing from ~95/share to ~129.  Yet no dividend was paid.  However, the 35.7% YTD for 2016 should make anyone happy. Both of these require excellent timing, and those kind of returns are unsustainable over the long haul.  Many people simply hold stocks.  Having the dividend is a nice bonus to some growth.   Why to people buy stocks?  For profit.  Sometimes dividend payers offer the best option, sometimes not.