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

Does investing in a company support it?
We're not "helping" the company in a comparable sense to donating money to a non-profit.  As you wrote, investing in a company deals with ownership and in a sense, becoming a part owner of a company, even if it is a minor ownership, indicates that we sense it has some sort of value, whether that's ethical, financial or tangible value.  As investors, we should take responsibility and ensure that our voices are heard when voting occurs (sadly, not too common). EDIT: @thepassiveinvestor makes an excellent point that this paragraph only applies to IPOs: Keep in mind, when we purchase stock in a company, that money is used for business purposes.  It also signals value to the market as well, if enough money or enough investors buy the stock.