Others probably chose a promising stock, only to later see its price plummet. Overall, hopefully you found more winners than losers and learned a little about the stock market in the process. When an investor purchases stock, they hope to benefit in one of three ways. The first, and most obvious reason, is that they hope the stock price will increase. They will also benefit if the firm issuing the stock is able to distribute dividends.
Dividends are earnings from a company that are distributed to individual investors.
The Third way an investor can benefit is if the firm decides to increase the current number of shares held by stockholders. When this occurs it is called a stock split. If the price of a stock becomes too high, sometimes a firm is concerned that investors will be less likely to buy stock. Someone previously holding 20 shares of stock is now holding 40 shares of stock. Big Blue invested in Dell Computer at the beginning of the game, and he never expected it to split.