How are shares used, and what are they, physically?
Shares used to be paper documents, but these days they are more commonly held electronically instead, although this partly depends on what country you're in. But it doesn't make any significant practical difference. Regardless of their physical form, a share simply signifies that you own a certain proportion of a company, and are thus entitled to receive any dividends that may be paid to the shareholders. To sell your shares, you need a broker -- there are scores of online ones who will sell them for a modest fee. Your tax forms are entirely dependent on the jurisdiction(s) that tax you, and since you've not told us where you are, no one can answer that. For some very small private companies I know of (and am part of), paper stocks do exist. You can sit at the table with the damn things in your hand and wave them in people's faces.  They tell everyone how much of the company you own as a result of the money you ponied up. On the other hand, most stocks are now electronic. Nothing to hold. Just electronic records to review. They still represent how much you own of the company because of some amount of money you have put at risk, but they aren't anywhere near as much fun as the old-fasioned paper proofs. (As MrChrister notes, you can pay a small fee to get paper if you like, even for some big companies. Some of these paper stocks are remarkably elaborate and fine looking, but hardly necessary.) (You can see more info about what stocks are and what sort of stocks exist here: http://www.wikinvest.com/wiki/What_is_a_stock%3F) If you are particularly interested in the share certificate artifacts themselves, there is a collection hobby in paper share certificates and bonds, called scripophily.  This can include both active share certificates (for instance, think about giving your kid or grandkid a frameable paper share of Hasbro, Disney or McDonalds?), inactive certificates from famous bankruptcies or famous companies of the past, or just the visual interest in scrollwork and engraved vignettes. How to 'use' your shares: If you own common shares in a company (as opposed to a fund) then you have the right (but not the obligation) to excersize one vote per share on questions put before the shareholders. Usually, this occurs once a year. Usually these questions regard approval of auditors. Sometimes they involve officers such as directors on the board. You will be mailed a form to fill out and mail back in.  Preferred shares usually are not voting shares,but common shares always are.  By the way, I do not recommend owning shares in companies. I recommend funds instead,either ETFs or mutual funds. Owning shares in companies puts you at risk of a failure of that company. Owning funds spreads that risk around,thus reducing your exposure.  There are, really, two purposes for owning shares 1) Owning shares gives you the right to declared dividends 2) Owning shares allows you to sell those shares at some time in the future. (Hopefully at a profit)  One obscure thing you can do with owned shares is to 'write' (sell) covered put options. But options are not something that you need to concern yourself with at this point.  You may find it useful to sign up for a free daily email from www.investorwords.com.
You just sound like a whiny little child screaming 'why do you like what I don't like!?'   I like physical books. One of the reasons for that is because I like putting them on a bookshelf and having a psychical collection. If you don't like that, I really don't give a flying fuck. You sit over there and play with your kindle and I'll sit over here and enjoy my shelves upon shelves of physical books. Neither of us is better than the other, we just *prefer different things*  You call me a pretentious douche but you're the person that comes off as one. Well done. What if everyone in college studied for a physics degree. How worthwhile would they be then?  Sure, a single individual can benefit from getting a difficult or niche degree, but I'm not sure that the system as a whole could benefit. This is going to be a list of some things that will likely be of value immediately after some apocalyptic event.  However, note that I am not answering your question of what you should invest in now to take advantage of such an event.  That is a pretty ridiculous notion.  Preparing oneself for such a possibility is certainly a good idea.  That said, there are some realistic limitations to how you could take advantage of such a situation.  Namely, the very real requirement of physical security.  Unless you have a huge posse -- armed to the teeth -- to defend your cache, someone will come along with a bigger and better armed group to take it.  (Not to mention that I am the type of person that would -- at least -- consider organizing such a group to take you down; if only as a matter of principle.) Guns & ammo (Also, knives; ideally ones that can be used as weapons and for food preparation/hunting.) Alcohol.  Especially liquor.  It's concentrated and easier to store than beer or wine.  Beside for getting inebriated, it is useful as a sedative and antiseptic. Non-perishable foods.  Canned goods are obvious.  Though, grains and cereals can be stored with relative ease under some circumstances.  (Obviously, not so easily done in an urban area.) Methods of starting a fire.  Preferably rugged ones, such as flint and steel.  (Lighters would only be of limited use.  Matches are bulky and require water-tight storage.) Salt and/or salt-licks.  (Possibly, other forms of non-perishable bait.)  As bstpierre puts it, hunting will be about survival not sport. Hand-tools. Textiles, fabrics, thread and needles. Medicines of all sorts, though especially antibiotics, antiseptics and painkillers. Books of a practical nature.  Topics such as: wilderness survival, cooking, carpentry, etc. The list is mostly ordered in terms of value & practicality. Ultimately, I doubt there is much that will provide a practical investment idea for such a scenario.  The physical security issue is a big limiting factor.  In a post-apocalyptic scenario it goes back to who is bigger, stronger and better armed. One thing does come to mind: knowledge.  Prepare yourself with the skills and knowledge you need to survive in such a scenario and you will be invaluable.  Also, as bstpierre notes in the comments, connections will likely also be important.  (Probably local or nearby connections.)  No one person can do it all alone.  It will come down to cooperation. It depends on what your goals are, your age, how much debt you have, etc. Assuming -- and we all know what happens when you assume -- that your financial life is otherwise in order, the 5% to 10% range you're talking about isn't overinvesting.  You won't have a lot of company; most people don't own any. One comment on this part: I have some gold (GLD), but not much ... Gold and GLD are not the same thing at all.  Owning shares of the SPDR Gold Trust is not the same thing as owning gold coins or bars.  You're achieving different ends by owning GLD shares as opposed to the physical yellow metal.  GLD will follow the spot price of gold pretty closely, but it isn't the same thing as physical ownership. Nobody tracks a single company's net assets on a daily basis, and stock prices are almost never derived directly from their assets (otherwise there would be no concept of 'growth stocks').  Stocks trade on the presumed current value of future positive cash flow, not on the value of their assets alone. Funds are totally different.  They own nothing but stocks and are valued on the basis on the value of those stocks.  (Commodity funds and closed funds muddy the picture somewhat, but basically a fund's only business is owning very liquid assets, not using their assets to produce wealth the way companies do.) A fund has no meaning other than the direct value of its assets.   Even companies which own and exploit large assets, like resource companies, are far more complicated than funds: e.g. gold mining or oil extracting companies derive most of their value from their physical holdings, but those holdings value depends on the moving price and assumed future price of the commodity and also on the operations (efficiency of extraction etc.) Still different from a fund which only owns very liquid assets. These are not real gains. Wherever you're looking this up, the prices are not adjusted for corporate actions. In a reverse stock split the price of a single share multiplies by five, but as a shareholder you hold only one share after for every five that you did before. crank out expensive shares when markets are frothy Corporations go public (sell their shares for the first time) in market conditions that have a lot of liquidity (a lot of people buying shares) and when they have to make the fewest concessions to appease an investing public. When people are greedy and looking to make money without using too much due diligence. Think Netscape's IPO in 1995 or Snapchat's IPO in 2017. They also issue more shares after already being public in similar circumstances. Think Tesla's 1 billion dollar dilution in 2017. Dilution results in the 1 share owning less of the company. So in a less euphoric investing environment, share prices go down in response to dilution. See Viggle's stock for an example, if you can find a chart. issue debt Non-financial companies create bonds and sell bonds. Why is that surprising to you? Cash is cash. This is called corporate bonds or corporate debt. You can buy Apple bonds right now if you want from the same brokers that let you buy stocks. mutual fund investor Bernstein is making a cynical assessment of the markets which carries a lot of truth. Dumping shares on your mom's 401k is a running gag amongst some financial professionals. Basically mutual fund investors are typically the least well researched or most gullible market participants to sell to, influenced by brand name more than company fundamentals, who will balk at the concept of reading a prospectus. Financial professionals and CFOs have more information than their investors and can gain extended advantages because of this. Just take the emotions out of it and make objective assessments. Stock trading (as opposed to IPO) doesn't directly benefit the company. But it affects their ability to raise additional funds; if they're valued higher, they don't need to sell as many shares to raise a given amount of money.  And the stockholders are part owners of the company; their votes in annual corporate meetings and the like can add up to a substantial influence on the company's policies, so the company has an interest in keeping them (reasonably) happy. Dividends (distributing part of the company's profits to the stockholders) are one way of doing so. You're still investing in the company. The fact that you're buying someone else's share just means you're doing so indirectly, and they're dis-investing at the same time.