The public buys stocks, often in order to secure their retirements, which in theory represent partial ownership of publicly traded companies.
These companies in turn, lobby legislators for favorable laws and subsidies, usually at the massive expense of the public, the working classes, and the habitable environment.
As a result, corporate profits go up, so the share prices increase, and the corporate media plays happy music.
The public thinks they should be happy because the listed value of their retirement accounts increased (even though the top 10% own roughly 90% of the stock market).
But the increase in share price often represents a massive theft of both wealth and political power from the public, through the privatization of what could and should have belonged to the public in the first place.
Everything from housing, to healthcare, to technological advances funded by the public are stolen, and then sold back to the public at inflated prices.
Imagine human beings having their limbs chopped off, and then sold back to them as food, forever.
That's the capitalist/kleptocratic system, and it's a complete abomination.