When you purchase stocks, or equities, as your advisor might put it, you become a part owner of the business.

Farnsworth now pays a host of vendors with company stock, including distributors, consultants and, most recently, singer Chaka Kahn, who will promote the brand in a new AD campaign.

With less funding to go around, analysts are increasingly concentrating on large, frequently traded shares, says Larry TABB of TABB Group, a consultancy.