> If you really want to own a stock that gives you no profits, no income from dividends, no voice in how its run, and actually no value what so ever other than the greater fool theory then go ahead.
I guess I'm a fool, because I take zero interest in participating in any of the stocks I've bought, apart from just monitoring the latest price and watching them (hopefully) go up.
Voting rights or not makes no difference to me.
But I suspect most individual / non-institutional investors are like me. So when I see people get upset about voting rights, it's really just a small number of very self-interested and deep-pocketed parties (activist investors, etc) with their own opinions of how a company should be run, and I don't as-a-rule agree with their opinions.
I also never vote (which means my broker votes for me). However, I very much value the ability to vote. Owning stock is about owning the company, and if you have no vote, you have no ownership. If management doesn't trust me with a vote, what makes me think they have my interests in mind? At that point, owning the stock is simply gambling on the price going up. Maybe I get some dividends, too--bonus--but since my share class can't vote, what would make the owners give any dividends to that class, rather than keeping it all themselves? If management wants to keep control, that's great, I'm all for that, but then they should issue bonds, not stock.
I guess I'm a fool, because I take zero interest in participating in any of the stocks I've bought, apart from just monitoring the latest price and watching them (hopefully) go up.
Voting rights or not makes no difference to me.
But I suspect most individual / non-institutional investors are like me. So when I see people get upset about voting rights, it's really just a small number of very self-interested and deep-pocketed parties (activist investors, etc) with their own opinions of how a company should be run, and I don't as-a-rule agree with their opinions.