If a stock doesn’t give dividends or voting rights, why is it worth anything?

So, here's a really eli5 way of explaining it.

Imagine there's 100 dollars that exist in the world. Let's say there are 100 firms and each firm is worth 1 dollar. Now, let's say that we print 900 dollars and distribute it evenly, so there's 1k dollars now. Each firm is worth 10 bucks.

If you buy a firm prior to the influx of 900 dollars, then that means you have a firm that's worth 1% of all the money that exists out there. I can sell that firm after the influx and now get 10 dollars. If I just kept my dollar, I'd be worth a lot less because of inflation and all. I'd be worth .1% of the the total wealth that exists as opposed to 1%.

A firm will typically reinvest any profits because there's not much to gain from just having the dollar on hand. I mean, what were you planning on doing with it anyway? You were going to invest it in the market, right? So you'd ostensibly want the firm you're already invested in to do well. You invested in it in the first place over another thing for a reason. This is why you don't really worry too much about dividends or voting rights.

There are some industries with firms that give out dividends and there is an argument to be made there about their safety and security considering they've, ostensibly, pretty much hit the capacity for growth in that sector. In general though, dividends are for nerds.

/r/investing Thread