Stocks & Investing

[Telo]

I'm an investor in a company and I belong to an online group of other investors in the same company.
A common complaint that I hear from my fellow investors is that the company doesn't care about us and that they only care about share holders and stock holders.

So now I'm thinking that maybe I should be one of those people since everyone assumes they are getting all the benefits. But what is the difference between a stock and a share?
How do I know which one I want to be?
Why are stockholders and shareholders more important than investors?
I'm buying a 'for dummies' book today but I thought I'd ask since the topic is open.

[Telo]

shareholder=stockholder.

You own a share of a stock.

How are you exactly invested in the company?

ok lightbulb. I didn't realize that the terms were interchangeable. That simplifies things a bit.

I'm not 'technically' an investor I don't think. I'm more of a customer that owns some benefits in the company.

They sold certain rights to their company. It's like a time share but not exactly.
I bought a certain amount of right to usage and I can sell those rights to someone else. Since the value of my rights have increased since I purchased them I consider it an investment and me an investor but I could be wrong in my thinking.
Rather than sell I can maintain my ownership and rent my rights (time) to others at a profit which is what I do on a regular basis. Again in my mind that makes my ownership a cash-flow investment to me but maybe not making me an investor in the company.

No matter my confused definition I don't own any shares of stock only shares of time or shares of use.

I do get voting rights in proportion to how much time I own. We are in an election and I keep reading the board to try to understand how to vote and people keep saying how bad things are and how we are getting screwed in favor of the share holders so I was figuring that I should become a share holder if they are getting all the benefits.

But hell if I know what they are. I've never owned a stock before. And I make a good living off of renting out so I'm not exactly sure what everyone is so upset about.

I got the 'Investing for Dummies' book today. It does have some chapters on what I need to learn but I think I need to get 'Stocks for Dummies' and research some more because I know nothing.

[Telo]

Yeah, you may be right. I'm a customer as I have purchased their product but it's confusing to me because I have voting rights based on how much I own so I don't really get it.

The fact that I don't get it is kinda pathetic because this is how I earn my living.
I was happy with it until I joined this group lol. Now I feel like I'm missing out on something.

Btw it is kind of a timeshare only instead of getting deeded a set amount of time in a certain place you can buy however much time you want in any number of places