The more shares you own, the more money in dividends you will receive. The other way an investor can make money is by having the stock price go up. This is generally how most of the money in a stock is made. The price of a stock will go up when there are more people that want to buy the stock than want to sell it. If more people want to sell it than want to buy it, the stock price will usually go down.
People also buy stocks so that they can have a part in making decisions that affect the company.
Companies have annual meetings to decide on things like whether to issue more stock or not or if they want to elect new people to the board of directors. When a company issues stock, they give up some of their rights to decide things like this to the shareholders. Types of Stock People often refer to stocks as penny stocks , growth stocks , and blue chips. A penny stock is stock of a company that is often very small and will most likely never become a large company. See, learning about stocks isn't that hard.