Stocks, and really anything, is worth exactly the intersection of what someone is willing to pay and what the person who has it is willing to accept. You can make valuations based on profits and growth and liabilities, but those are estimates to help professionals determine what they are willing to pay or accept. If some dolt is willing to pay more, then that’s what it is worth for that transaction.

If the stock goes up in value, some people will sell. There’s a natural balance to the curve, as the faster a stock rises, the more people will sell and this will bring the price back to earth. This is why the diamond hands strategy of Game Stop investors was so confounding. People weren’t buying for profit, they were buying to fuck over short selling hyenas. But that’s a whole nother can of worms.

The point is, if people believe it will go up, they will buy. More buyers means the price goes up, so that can have a compounding effect, and they feel good about their decision. When people think it’s gone high enough, they sell, which makes the price go down, and they feel good about their decision.

The stock market is as much paychology as it is economics. Precicting what humans will do and then doing it first is the real magic of investing. And with Muskeegee Airhead, there’s no way to predict what he will do. That’s why risk averse investors are moving away.