A lot of the business news commentators seem to forget to mention that much of the buying and selling in the stock market is initiated by computer algorithms. They never mention the big Wall Street Financial Institutions IT personnel created the algorithms to maximize profits. To quote Jim Cramer's soundboard "Sell, Sell, Sell"!

I'm still trying to figure out why it went so high. Dumb, dumber, and dumbest. I don't worry about the market fluctuating. It's being manipulated. I was amazed when it passed $10K!

Study the Sharpe Ratio.

Goldman for certain, but I think most of the major trading companies with the ability to trade in volume and move the market conspire to steal from the very people and companies who are their customers. Usually it's not the major traders that get "caught" because they let others take a fall instead, every time. The "industry" has controlled the Treasury Dept for decades and iirc the SEC has been run by Wall St lawyers the past 5 years.

Supply and demand.. Correcting valuations to discount future earnings. All of which can be manipulated short term. Response to interest rate changes and trade considerations. Herd behavior and program trading , all play a role in the trading action.

"Dividend investors also speculate. A dividend stock is still stock, that after time, can have a greater or lesser value then what you bought it at."

I'm not denying any of that. Like most of the world, you've been conditioned to think solely in terms of stock price as the "value" of a company - rather than its balance sheet. I remember a time when stocks which didn't pay dividends were just coming on the scene. (Microsoft was one of the first.) Stocks would accurately reflect the true production value of a company - not their speculative value. Price-to-Earnings ratios meant something, as did a host of other financial indicators (debt-to-equity, etc.) Now the only thing that matters is the PR campaigns which either tout the hype or downplay it - depending on the issue. No talk at all of actual profitability. (Again - Tesla!)

Case in point: Amazon recently topped a billion dollars in stock value. Yet Amazon's day-to-day loses money. Facebook hasn't turned a profit in years yet still enjoys robust "value" - at least until it was discovered that they were covering up egregious ethical violations. Apple - if considered based on their product offerings alone - isn't worth the billion they are at either. One can go down the entire list of companies included in the major indices such as the Dow and see a disturbing trend of over-leveraged companies. They operate only one PR fiasco away from insolvency.

'Also, if you use leftist think,"

Don't make my head hurt. There's no reason a company can't have both dividends and a profit-sharing program. Then you benefit both your employees and your investors - and doubly so if your employees are also investors. It's the best of both worlds IMHO. Hewlett-Packard used to be this way. I used to work for them when it was, and you couldn't find more dedicated employees. After they changed their policies and killed many of the employee- and investor-appreciation programs, most of the dedication went out the door as well. Now they are just a glorified consumer electronics manufacturer where they used to be the premier tech research company in the world.

Dividend investors also speculate. A dividend stock is still stock, that after time, can have a greater or lesser value then what you bought it at.

Also, if you use leftist think, then when a stockholder gets a dividend, the workers are losing money they should’ve been paid. They are all losers, being oppressed, and must rise up in anger to break their chains, as well as a bunch of other things.

Yep, its called selling short. Sell, get the cash then buy back the stocks when it hits bottom. Got cash and the stock. Of course the risk is betting wrong and the market goes up, not down. The big boys have the inside track and I doubt they ever take a loss.

I agree that risk is purely a personal determination. And I don't claim that dividend-paying stocks are without risk.

The point that I am making is that non-dividend paying stocks are not an investment. They are purely speculative ventures and the only way the speculator gains is when someone else loses. In a real investment, both parties gain when the investment pans out but there is no loss required for that gain to be realized.

That is likely one of the means they feel is necessary to win By Any Means Necessary.

Determining risk is not an “exact” science. People that get it mostly right can make a fortune. Even dividend paying stocks have risk. Just ask those whose dividend paying stocks plummeted in value before or after the dividend was cut.

Can you be more specific than “Wall Street”? Neither the physical location nor the stock market offices are responsible for what you accuse them, I believe.

I think the Democrats would sink us in a depression to make trump look bad, so long as their involvement was hidden

Maybe the mostly liberal investors are realizing the jig is up as trump won with kavanaugh, and they better take their deep state gains

Risk about what, exactly on what return, exactly?

The only "return" investors get on most stocks now available (non-dividend stocks) is if they sell the stock to someone else who hopes that very same stock price keeps going up so they, too, can profit. It's a game of pure speculation like roulette - and you have to know when to walk away. The other detrimental part of this methodology is that if one pays one's executives with stock options, those executives become incentivized to hide anything that might bring the stock price down and devalue those options (until they vest), while at the same time they are rewarded with hyperbolic claims about future growth, etc. See Elon Musk. It is a short-term mentality all about taking quick advantage of momentary gains.

Compare that to a stock which pays dividends. The investor gets some return regardless of the stock price - a return which is predicated on the profitable function of that company during the previous quarter or year. Investors are rewarded through their continued investment in the company AND its profitable function. Add to that that stock options offered as part of executive bonus plans then become a long-term incentive, executives are much more likely to address problems rather than put them off, engage in long-term relationships with customers, suppliers, and partners, and employees know that the focus of the company will enable them to actually build a career. (HP used to be this way.)

"Compare that with “investing” into a system of progressive taxation."

Not sure how that ties to the stock market in any way. Besides that, the only people who invest in taxation are big government elitists hoping to be in control.

I disagree. To the investor, it is about risk. There are very risky stocks that could be huge winners or huge losers based on many volatile factors. This is more the gambling side. There are also much safer stocks, where historically the price trends upwards slowly, with low volatility, while the core company continues to produce what is needed.

And the best thing is, the investor gets to choose which stocks they want to invest in. Or NOTA.

Compare that with “investing” into a system of progressive taxation.

They hate capitalism! They want to move to socialism because it enables them to accumulate power. I wouldn't even be surprised if they feel that a martial overthrow of the system is what is needed to accomplish their goals. Ammo up!

They somehow feel that this political system is the core of US capitalism.

Could be, but I don't think so. That would be too intelligent of a move. Especially for all the calls to violence from the left.Very gauche.

I sold my little brokerage business a couple years ago, and have been watching the market since with a sense of wonder. We are way overdue for a correction, if you put much value on history precedent. See the article in Marketwatch just 1 or 2 days ago about the bear chart. It's pretty good, actually. You can see, as I did when it happened, the market preparing for a Hillary victory, then the revival in Trump's victory...see how the pattern was going. I had to scramble for a week to move my own holdings then because I was sure Hillary was going to win and had positioned myself accordingly. You'll find humor in that I was in things like a contract prison company, Taser, and several other telling holdings...haha!

45 years a free market Economist, learned enough to say: you’re all potentially right.

I have been paying more attention to politics lately, so have only seen some possible major developments:

Central banks, especially The Fed, which I firmly oppose, throws a major wrench into the analysis. If, as I have heard, they are going to finally let interest rates rise, and even the market expectation of a rise, could easily cause the stock market to do what it’s doing.

And I have seen Trump complaining loudly against that: “I like low interest rates.” Grrr.

In my very tentative opinion, and I don’t even know the current Fed chairman, he would be the only likely person who, if anti-Trump, might do this, “intentionally”. I doubt that. As he can’t do it on his own.

OTOH, rates have been artificially much, much too low for years. They have to rise. We could be nearing the peak of what Mises call the “crackup-boom”. Not good.

I view the stock market at this point as gambling. Unless the stock pays dividends, there is no coupling of performance to investor return - it is all speculation. And so speculation is going to drive the ups and downs.

I would be much more worried about a weaponization/partisan attack at the Federal Reserve. It would have severe repercussions and the Democrats don't care right now what they do to restore themselves to power.

Yes to a degree, but me dino also agrees with what freedomforall, Solver, DrZarkov99 and Olduglycarl are saying about the stock market here so far.
The stock market is subjected to a wide variety of influences, including manipulative billionaire traitors who dream of global socialism and may not all be named George.

It's tempting to impose a post hoc story on market fluctuations, but I think it's random noise superimposed on the "signal" of expectations of future earnings. You don't know notice the noise in more illiquid things, e.g. similar businesses not on a public stock exchange, but I imagine it's there. It's why you can look at ratios to estimate a business value, but there's no right answer; it's just what buyers and sellers agree to. It's the same with stocks, just more liquidity of a huge herd of buyers and sellers.