No, you have no ownership stake when you buy a ticket. I get that you have little influence when you own a few shares. However, buying shares literally makes you an owner. Our discussion is about whether buybacks are appropriate or should be allowed.
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I completely understand what you are saying. I just donât feel that owning 0.0000001 ( made up number ) percent stake means that Iâm an owner. But I respect your opinion, and I know that technically it is an âownershipâ position. I wonât be expecting any invites from any of the higher-ups, to hobnob with them at any of their ownership meetings, though lol
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Or to listen to your thought on the business and its future, or to discuss there own personal performance in the job, or to explore your ideas for shareholder rights, payback, or - actually - anything else having to do with your âownership.â So in that way, you are virtually identical to the sports fan in every respect, except you have a piece of paper that nominally confers some (unknown) rights to you.
Itâs like a member of the Green Bay Packers âownershipâ thinking that means he can talk to the coach about the play and the strategy for the next game. Those little pieces of âownershipâ paper are a pride thing, not meaningful in any real sense.
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See the guy that owned 7 shares of Tesla who sued successfully to get Muskâs comp plan tossed.
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Except that my little pieces of âownershipâ in Nvidia (now 10K shares out of 25 billion shares outstanding) are now worth about a million dollars. Which is meaningful. To me.
DB2
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Speaking of which, I was just looking at my 3,769% gain in NVDA and thinking how meaningless those little pieces of paper are to me. 
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Iâm sorry; but none of us owners think any such thing. Sure my stock certificate is a pride thing but I also get to vote on the Board of Directors and other relevant affairs and get a copy of our financials. So it is meaningful in a real sense. Additionally, no person can own more than some small percentage (Iâm thinking 5%) of the shares and consequently our votes do matter. I think there are some 350,000 shareholders.
JimA
Sure but you guys are talking about âdollar valueâ and the discussion is about âcontrolâ or lack thereof. I chose the Packers because they are publicly owned. Lots of people have a little piece of ownership paper, presumably itâs worth more than when issued, but thereâs still no control.
If your election vote in November was â1â but you knew Harry down the block had 2,000,000 votes would you feel the same about democracy?
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No, the discussion was about the Dutch Wealth Tax and then buybacks and that they benefit shareholders equally, for some unconnected reason floated off into the influence or lack thereof for the average shareholder.
I give zero consideration to my potential level of influence when deciding in which company to invest money. Also, Zero is exactly the amount of the monetary value of a share of Packerâs stock.
I donât see the point in the discussion nor the relevance of one example to the other. Does the lack influence prevent you from wanting to own individual stocks?
Timing
Watch out for MBAs self dealing. Regardless of how good the company story is.
The S&P 500âs price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio averaged 19.4x from January 1971 to June 2017, with a median of 17.7x. However, as of April 30, 2024, the S&P 500âs 10-year P/E ratio was 32.6, which is 61% higher than the modern-era average of 20.3. This suggests that the market is overvalued.
Given that the S&P 500 right now is so overly influenced by a few companies, itâs difficult simply to look at the avg P/E and draw a conclusion. Having said that, the P/Eâs are elevated from the historical averages and wouldnât be outside the range of possibilities for the major averages to correct by even as much as 50%.
Itâs a constant wall of worry but I give little thought to the macro. Itâs beyond my control and the data suggests most people get it wrong in terms of trying to time their investments. I just look at the specific businesses I own, the management, and their likely range of valuations.
Iâve always been most impressed by the S&P500 managers. They seem to consistently and repeatedly beat 99.93% of all fund managers over the medium and long term. You can count on one hand, maybe two, how many other fund managers have beat them over the medium or long term.
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I am alluding to management issuing stock options to themselves and then insisting on stock buybacks. The cost of doing business is high.
If you were a Mom and Pop that is not how youâd do it.
Instead youâd pay the executives more money in bonuses. For the most part how BRK does it.
Warren Buffett places high value on the integrity and competence of management -and presumably his ability to occasionally jawbone or chat with them as the case may be. And he is buying tens of thousands of shares, so yeah Iâd say there are other qualities than âpriceâ or P/E or other quantitative measures that are important.
PS: threads meander. A significant part of the conversation has nothing to do with âDutchâ anything. Please keep up. 
I never said price or quantitative measures were solely important. I would say the most important are qualitative ones. Does the business have a brand, product, or service with a long term competitive moat?
Buffett and Munger have made a whole slew of investments, never having met the management. In some cases they prefer not to do so, they donât want them sold on a company other than by their own objective metrics. They do of course want the businesses run by competent and capable people. However, itâs never the primary reason that they invest in the business.
The question was does the fact that you donât have influence or access to management, influence your decision as to whether to own individual stocks?
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