A share is a slice of ownership in a real underlying business. If someone sells a house, it is quite often also their home. If someone offered an excessively cheeky price, the (still) owner would tell them (the wishful buyer) to get knotted. Unless they had no choice but to sell. You don’t sell slices of your home. You either sell the whole thing (and buy another one), or not at all. With shares, little bits of ownership swap hands, but unless the company is raising more money, it can often crack on with doing whatever it does (largely unaffected). A share price is not the price of the whole company changing hands. It is the last slice to swap hands. It is a quote as a guide for the next person who wants to buy or sell. That is part of why price is not value. If suddenly a whole lot of people are buying, the price will go up. If suddenly they sell, the price will fall. The only way you would see how much the whole company would sell for, and turn into cash… is if the whole business went on sale. And there was a buyer. And cash changed hands. Price is a rough stab value. Real value is what gets done. Sustainably, and into the future.
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