But yes, exactly. Buying shares is the same sort of investment as buying a house (except less useful to the shareholder, because they can't live in a company's office, and a lot more volatile because house prices go up and down slowly in general, whereas shares can rise or fall by factors of 10 or more within a year). A "stocks and shares" ISA or other similar investment simply means that the money is spread across several institutions so that hopefully they won't all go bust at once.
Note that a lot of outside determinations of a person's monetary 'worth' include things like shares and house ownership even though those things can't easily be turned into cash (if you inherit a house, for instance, you will likely not be eligible for income support and the like because you are 'worth' thousands of pounds, even though you can't sell it immediately). So many people who the papers say are "worth millions" actually could never realise that money if they needed it because it's tied up in companies (as they could lose it all if the companies fold, I have several friends who were 'paid' in shares by their companies and those shares are now worthless, no one wants to buy them).
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-01-11 12:16 pm (UTC)But yes, exactly. Buying shares is the same sort of investment as buying a house (except less useful to the shareholder, because they can't live in a company's office, and a lot more volatile because house prices go up and down slowly in general, whereas shares can rise or fall by factors of 10 or more within a year). A "stocks and shares" ISA or other similar investment simply means that the money is spread across several institutions so that hopefully they won't all go bust at once.
Note that a lot of outside determinations of a person's monetary 'worth' include things like shares and house ownership even though those things can't easily be turned into cash (if you inherit a house, for instance, you will likely not be eligible for income support and the like because you are 'worth' thousands of pounds, even though you can't sell it immediately). So many people who the papers say are "worth millions" actually could never realise that money if they needed it because it's tied up in companies (as they could lose it all if the companies fold, I have several friends who were 'paid' in shares by their companies and those shares are now worthless, no one wants to buy them).