[mancerayder]

That depends how you trade. They might be based on something, but sometimes either THEY are not (look up RIOT as a stock symbol) or those trading don't at all care (day traders).

Look, the reason why stock technical analysis exists is because people sometimes want to make money independently of their perceived value of the underlying asset.

Instead, they try to enter a poker game of mass psychology, some armchair, speculative game theory. Don't kid yourself. While the image of the responsible Warren admiring or index-fund, Boglehead type is a warm one, most of the rest is as speculative and manipulative as Bitcoin.

[usrusr]

That is all true in a way, but stocks are still a projection of a projection of a projection ... of future performance of the underlying company. Only bitcoin is turtles all the way down.