Comment by badpun

> Those who do not sell, get their reward in the proportion of their ownership of the company going up.

This is incorrect. If the company buys back say $100m worth of its stock, it's true that the individual shares remaining represent a larger fraction of the company, BUT the company itself is worth $100m less after the transaction (because it has spent that $100m on purchase of something that can't be added to the balance sheet - basically incinerated that money from company's point of view, similarly to how paying out dividends is "destroying" money). These two factors cancel out perfectly, and the book value per share remains unchanged.