Okay, so people say that it's because of dividends, and I'm willing to assume that dividends were common, if not universal, in the early days of the stock market.

But let's look at it in the present:

Quote:
The whole reason you bought it was to participate in the exchange, precisely because it has no intrisic "utility" value.

But if it has no intrinsic value, why would I buy it in the first place? Because someone else wants it, right? But why do they want it? Because someone else wants it. It's like a closed loop. Basically, people want it because other people want it. There's no ultimate exit strategy. If, for some reason, everyone lost interest in this trading game, the people left holding the stock certificates would have nothing of value.

As far as I can figure, they have slightly less intrinsic value than baseball cards.