<story><title>Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/business/bed-bath-beyond-bankruptcy.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>neurobama</author><text>The whole stock market in 2023 makes no sense to me, not just Bed Bath and Beyond. So many companies no longer pay dividends. So many classes of stock are now non-voting shares. Common stock shareholders usually get nothing if a company goes bankrupt and liquidates.&lt;p&gt;So if I don&amp;#x27;t get dividends, can&amp;#x27;t vote, and am not entitled to a share of the company&amp;#x27;s assets, what is the actual value in owning stock? Do I just wait for the share price to go up, sell at the peak, and pass my shares on to the greater fool? That&amp;#x27;s starting to smell a lot like the worst sort of crypto trading.</text></item><item><author>humanlion87</author><text>I find the whole situation fascinating. Bed Bath continued to sell hundreds of millions of shares while they were preparing for bankruptcy and retail investors (or meme stock investors) continued to buy them. I assume Bed Bath did all the paperwork that is necessary (like calling out risks, that the raised capital will go to creditors first, etc) for such a stock sale. But it is clear they were doing it out of bad-faith to the new investors.&lt;p&gt;As usual Matt Levine&amp;#x27;s take on this is a good read.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spaceman_2020</author><text>Everything has been fundamentally detached from reality, from stocks to housing.&lt;p&gt;Houses can sit empty without tenants for years but they’ll only go up. Companies can be unprofitable for literal decades but they’ll keep finding funding and buyers. Commercial properties can bleed tenant but the prices will only be up.&lt;p&gt;In a world of shrinking growth , stalling productivity, and dying demographics, the market behaves like infinite growth is baked in.&lt;p&gt;It’s very clear to any observer that the markets don’t follow any rationality anymore.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/business/bed-bath-beyond-bankruptcy.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>neurobama</author><text>The whole stock market in 2023 makes no sense to me, not just Bed Bath and Beyond. So many companies no longer pay dividends. So many classes of stock are now non-voting shares. Common stock shareholders usually get nothing if a company goes bankrupt and liquidates.&lt;p&gt;So if I don&amp;#x27;t get dividends, can&amp;#x27;t vote, and am not entitled to a share of the company&amp;#x27;s assets, what is the actual value in owning stock? Do I just wait for the share price to go up, sell at the peak, and pass my shares on to the greater fool? That&amp;#x27;s starting to smell a lot like the worst sort of crypto trading.</text></item><item><author>humanlion87</author><text>I find the whole situation fascinating. Bed Bath continued to sell hundreds of millions of shares while they were preparing for bankruptcy and retail investors (or meme stock investors) continued to buy them. I assume Bed Bath did all the paperwork that is necessary (like calling out risks, that the raised capital will go to creditors first, etc) for such a stock sale. But it is clear they were doing it out of bad-faith to the new investors.&lt;p&gt;As usual Matt Levine&amp;#x27;s take on this is a good read.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>NoboruWataya</author><text>Others have mentioned buybacks, but the broader point is that if a company is consistently profitable, it will &lt;i&gt;eventually&lt;/i&gt; pay dividends (or do buybacks). The board, who decide what to do with the company&amp;#x27;s money, have fiduciary obligations to the shareholders. They can hold cash reserves to cover future liabilities and they can re-invest profits in growing the business, but ultimately when the board cannot identify profitable investment opportunities, that money has to go back to the shareholders.&lt;p&gt;Also, it is only in insolvent liquidations that shareholder get nothing back. If the company were to wind up while still solvent, the shareholders would get their share of its net assets. (Though I don&amp;#x27;t think this happens much with public companies.)</text></comment>