Stock value derives more from belief and perception than actual performance

Evidence

It would be a mistake to regard this market Stalinism as some deviation from the ‘true spirit’ of capitalism. On the contrary, it would be better to say that an essential dimension of Stalinism was inhibited by its association with a social project like socialism and can only emerge in a late capitalist culture in which images acquire an autonomous force. The way value is generated on the stock exchange depends of course less on what a company ‘really does’, and more on perceptions of, and beliefs about, its (future) performance. In capitalism, that is to say, all that is solid melts into PR, and late capitalism is defined at least as much by this ubiquitous tendency towards PR-production as it is by the imposition of market mechanisms. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 94

The way value is generated on the stock exchange depends of course less on what a company ‘really does’, and more on perceptions of, and beliefs about, its (future) performance. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 94

It would be a mistake to regard this market Stalinism as some deviation from the ‘true spirit’ of capitalism. On the contrary, it would be better to say that an essential dimension of Stalinism was inhibited by its association with a social project like socialism and can only emerge in a late capitalist culture in which images acquire an autonomous force. The way value is generated on the stock exchange depends of course less on what a company ‘really does’, and more on perceptions of, and beliefs about, its (future) performance. In capitalism, that is to say, all that is solid melts into PR, and late capitalism is defined at least as much by this ubiquitous tendency towards PR-production as it is by the imposition of market mechanisms. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 94

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the reader’s piece on sacrifice/corpses territory only loosely, but more aptly complements the trees-as-infrastructure theme only if stretched. Better fit is not clean here — actually this connects to nothing on the addendum list cleanly, so skip.
• SHARE: The phrase ‘all that is solid melts into PR’ reworking Marx and the claim that stock value is PR-belief-dependent is worth sending to any finance or cultural-theory friend interested in Fisher.
• XREF: The Marx-derived phrase ‘all that is solid melts into air’ connects to the broader conversation on how immaterial perception undergirds material value — echoes themes from Baudrillard and Debord also in this library. — connects to: Share prices reflect guesses about others’ opinions, not intrinsic value — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 995; Financialization makes belief in value more central than ever — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 400; Shareholder value operates as discourse disconnected from actual firm performance — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 49 (+4 more)
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 94

Related

• Perception, not production, is the core generator of value in late capitalism (similarity 0.87)
• Share prices reflect guesses about others’ opinions, not intrinsic value (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Share prices reflect guesses about others’ opinions, not intrinsic value #corroborates (0.92) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 995
• Speculation prices assets by imagined future appeal to others, not actual value. #corroborates (0.88) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 138
• Shareholder value operates as discourse disconnected from actual firm performance #corroborates (0.85) — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 49
• Speculation is an imaginative act detached from asset value, pricing others’ future desires #corroborates (0.82) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 215
• Asset prices can embed subjective probabilities of events that never actually occur #expands (0.78) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1587
• Financialization makes belief in value more central than ever #expands (0.75) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 400
• Judgments about overseas base security value rest on prior beliefs, not evidence #exemplifies (0.75) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 1040