Another thing to consider against your claim that the tie-in between stock value and company performance is imagined- consider what would happen if a large, successful company had stock valued at a fraction of a penny. In fact, say you could buy a controlling amount of stock in an IBM sized company for $100,000. That would obviously be a worthwile investment, as you could then do whatever you wish with it and pocket as much of the profits as you wanted (remember, this is a successful company well in the black). Of course, that wouldn't ever happen because the moment a successful company got anywhere near that, it would be snatched up by hungry investors. No one would ever let it get that low because the value IS tied to the performance of the company. The other extreme would be owning a controlling share in a lousy company and trying to sell it for a premium price. It isn't going to happen because no one wants any piece of a company losing money.

That's not to say I don't agree with a lot of your point- it seems that stock prices rise and fall more at the whim of investors than because of real value fluctuations in the worth of a company. The value of Microsoft is probably not changing drastically from day to day, but its stock price is probably a different story (though I wouldn't know, not following Microsoft stock). Having said all of that, owning stock IS ownership in a company, and it does carry with it some degree of controlling how that company can make you money, including issuing profits to your pocket. Unforutnatly, you'd have to own quite a big piece to really have any reasonable control over these things. That doesn't change the fact that buying stock is buying something of value, as little value as it may be in the grand scheme of things.