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LESSON 1

What you actually own when you buy a share

When you buy a of a company, you're not buying a symbol that moves up and down on a screen — you're buying a small legal slice of a real business: its factories, its brands, its future profits. Owning even one share makes you a , with a claim on whatever is left over after everyone else — staff, suppliers, lenders — has been paid.

Most of the shares you'll ever buy are — the standard kind, one vote each, no guaranteed payout. Multiply the share price by every share the company has issued and you get its — what the market currently thinks the whole business is worth, not what it's actually worth.

Company worth £10bn2bn shares issued£5.00 per share

One share is one two-billionth of the company. No more, no less.

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