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Stock market vs. baseball card trading analogy
Baseball cards don't pay dividends. But many profitable companies do just that, and those that don't could, some day. Profits & dividends is where your analogy falls apart.  But let's take it further.  Consider: If baseball cards could somehow yield a regular stream of income just for owning them, then there might be yet another group of people, call them the Daves.  These Daves I know are the kind of people that would like to own baseball cards over the long term just for their income-producing capability.  Daves would seek out the cards with the best chance of producing and growing a reliable income stream.  They wouldn't necessarily care about being able to flip a card at an inflated price to a Bob, but they might take advantage of inflated prices once in a while. Heck, even some of the Steves would enjoy this income while they waited for the eventual capital gain made by selling to a Bob at a higher price.  Plus, the Steves could also sell their cards to Daves, not just Bobs.  Daves would be willing to pay more for a card based on its income stream: how reliable it is, how high it is, how fast it grows, and where it is relative to market interest rates.  A card with a good income stream might even have more value to a Dave than to a Bob, because a Dave doesn't care as much about the popularity of the player. Addendum regarding your comment: I suppose I'm still struggling with the best way to present my   question. I understand that companies differ in this aspect in that   they produce value. But if stockholders cannot simply claim a   percentage of a company's value equal to their share, then the fact   that companies produce value seems irrelevant to the "Bobs". You're right – stockholders can't simply claim their percentage of a company's assets. Rather, shareholders vote in a board of directors.  The board of directors can decide whether or not to issue dividends or buy back shares, each of which puts money back in your pocket.  A board could even decide to dissolve the company and distribute the net assets (after paying debts and dissolution costs) to the shareholders – but this is seldom done because there's often more profit in remaining a going concern. I think perhaps what you are getting hung up on is the idea that a small shareholder can't command the company to give net assets in exchange for shares.  Instead, generally speaking, a company runs somewhat like a democracy – but it's each share that gets a vote, not each shareholder. Since you can't redeem your shares back to the company on demand, there exists a secondary market – the stock market – where somebody else is willing to take over your investment based on what they perceive the value of your shares to be – and that market value is often different from the underlying "book value" per share.