Serious question about socially ethical investing.

Is one truly making a statement and helping Evilcorp by buying stock?

Or is it more of a zero sum game where it's going to the market price with or without you; might as well make more money there and use the winnings somewhere more socially responsible?

That goes back to the issue of how long the market can stay irrational. Maybe a very long time. Maybe not long at all. So you risk giving a windfall to the contrarian investor but maybe no contrarian investor will arrive.

I'm pretty sure that China, Japan, Brazil, South Korea and the rest of the foreign sector will be gobbling up stocks willy nilly -- the foreign sector owns 40% of US corp equity and debt, and that number is increasing by about 7% every decade -- so I am a bit skeptical that Exxon needs you to buy their stock, or really any Americans at all - but I wont bet money it wont work in any specific case.

If I were to pick a stock most susceptible to price manipulation, I'd go for a smallish company that's more vulnerable.

Yes, buying (and in turning raising the price of) stock does help the corporation

Specifically it lets them dillute and raise money at higher valuation, it makes the board happy with the current management and it lets them distribute employee shares at lower costs.

> Is one truly making a statement and helping Evilcorp by buying stock?

That's not the point. The point is that when you buy EvilCorp stock, you:

1. Are part of the owners of EvilCorp, i.e. participate in decision-making in EvilCorp (at least in theory), so you are taking partial responsibility for its actions.

2. More importantly, you are providing EvilCorp with more funds to do its evil work.

The above is completely irrespective of stock prices.

Not if you're buying stock on the open market - only in the IPO, or in additional sale rounds, are you providing funds for a company to scale out their operations.