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    What if it's actively bad to hold shares? Commented Mar 16, 2020 at 19:51
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    @gerrit That could only happen if there was some fixed unavoidable cost (e.g. a strange form of taxation) in continuing to own a "worthless" share. Otherwise, the only way the price can move in future is upwards so there is no benefit in "giving the shares away." I remember a financial advisor once trying to bully me into some course of action by saying "but if there was a property price crash and your home was only worth $1,, what would you do?" He didn't like the answer "withdraw $1000 from my bank account, buy something 1000 times bigger than my house, and wait for the price recovery". Commented Mar 16, 2020 at 20:11
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    @gerrit why would it be actively bad to hold shares? In standard company structures (e.g. excluding partnerships and such) in reasonable legal environments there are no possible downsides to holding shares, your liability is limited to what you paid for them, at worst they become effectively worthless. The legal framework for shares is usually carefully designed to ensure that it can't be actively bad to hold shares in order to facilitate public participation in share ownership and investment in the active economy; limited liability is a key concept from late 1800s facilitating modern economy. Commented Mar 17, 2020 at 8:48
  • @Peteris I see. I thought that possibly, ownership may bring obligations, but apparently not. Commented Mar 17, 2020 at 9:33
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    @gerrit it's worth noting that in the general case ownership may bring obligations, there are some legal forms of companies where that's true. However, such companies can't have their shares publicly traded; stock exchanges list only companies where owning their shares does not assume any liabilities. Commented Mar 17, 2020 at 9:55