I'll leave the issues of "used financial assets", "real" assets to the text books.  When does a company like Intel, originally a small company developing and manufacturing products, turn from a "real" company into a "used financial asset".  Today's Intel still develops and manufacutes products--is it a "used fiancial asset" because it is a publicly traded company, or because it is big?  It seems to do the same things, only on bigger scale.  And it has chosen to be a public company so ownership can be diversified to the public, and so it can raise money to grow more quickly and easily.