Yeah if I wanted something that didn't pay dividends I'd buy futures contracts on commodities. It's quite pointless to be spending so much on stocks and not get anything back but speculation.
I agree with this wholeheartedly, but many speculators don't. For one thing, you don't have to pay capital gains tax unless you actually sell a stock and realize those gains--and you DO have to pay tax on dividend income. I see the advantage of that, even though I still prefer getting dividends. Dividends, if they're consistent, at least provide a baseline gain% and some cash every quarter.
But they have been diversifying, for sure.
Not surprisingly. Many corporations are seeing their organic growth slow down, so they have to do acquisitions to artificially prop their growth and profits up. Sometimes it's a good long-term decision, sometimes not. I'm not a big fan of social media in general, as I see it as a toxic aspect of society, and I'm even less a fan of the stocks of social media companies. Some of them, like FB, are making tons of money now, but I'm not sure if that's viable in the long-term.
By the way, FB stock hasn't rebounded at all since this thread was started.