The shares of stock available on the NYSE , are ‘common’ shares of stock. The ‘stockholders’ ie; the board of directors, they own ‘preferred’ shares of stock. Those stockholders, are the ‘owners’ of the company. The people who own shares of a company that are bought and sold on the NYSE, are actually loaning money to a company by buying those shares, in exchange for a dividend(hopefully), kinda like getting paid interest only on money you lend out, hopefully in the future the value of that common share increases, so it can be sold for more than it was bought for.