Stock Markets Exposed

how does someone make money in the stock market if their stock prices never rise?"?

I am new to buying some stock but have a huge question. If people buy "solid" stock that never really rise or fall a lot (for example, Apple, Coke, Wal-Mart) how do people make money? Like I said I am new to this but seems to me to make money, your stock has to rise a lot and then you have to sell it to cash in your money. Please any explanations! Thanks for the responses - that makes sense - but now I have another question.... when are the dividends paid out? how are they determined? and do you have to have your stock in their company for a certain period of time? years? months?

Public Comments

1. Dividends. Some companies like the local electric utility pay a nice steady dividend of 5-10%. They don't become much more or less valuable and you never need to sell.
2. Dividends and reinvesting them. Apple doesnt pay a dividend but its gone from roughly 30 to 100 in the past five years. If a stock is expected to make money in the future the price will rise. If not, it should be avoided. To build wealth you need to hold for the long term and reinvest dividends. Just like saving money in the bank. If you want wealth you need to reinvest the so it compounds. If you want income put your money in a CD, a stock the pays a dividend, or bonds and collect the interest.
3. Both Coke and Walmart pay dividends so that is one way you can make money. They also tend to raise their dividends just about every year. The raising of the dividend in itself should over time cause the price of the stock to also rise. Apple on the other hand does not pay a dividend so if the price were to never rise then you would not make any money. BUT!!! stock prices do not stay constant ever. They rise and they fall. Apple especially. It is a very volitle stock. It might very well see a 5 point swing during one day's trading. Traders just love that type of stock. They can buy it near its low for the day and sell it near its high for the day and make $5.00 a share. That works out to about 5% profit a day. Of course if they guess wrong, it works out to a 5% loss for that day.
4. I used to buy utilities...like one said, they dont flucuate much and pay nice dividends...HOWEVER, I no longer have them for the following reasons: The housing foreclosure epidemic will leave a lot of homes vacant with no energy use, and defaulting on their bills and coal isnt as popular as it once was...there goes the cheap fuel. Now nuclear looks good to a lot of companies, but one accident and the results are horrific....so I would go with good reliable consumer goods companies. .... Gilette, Coke, Pepsi, Church and Dwight, Vanity Fair etc