Siphon

The speculative markets siphon capital away from the legitimate economy, where it is used to amass leverage against weaker competitors. It's an armory and a munitions depot for corporate raiders, just like you wrote.

Imagine two publicly traded companies, both in the business of making widgets. Now imagine that majority ownership of one of those two widget companies is obtained through purchase of a majority of their shares by a huge business conglomerate. Then imagine what might happen next- the huge conglomerate can use its considerable stockpile of funds to short the stock of the widget company it didn't buy, and use other funds to bid up the share price of the widget company that it bought. The market reacts to this by piling on, and soon other big institutional investors and hedge funds are jumping in on the widget company with the rising share price and shorting the independent widget company- maybe even using naked shorts.

This is an example of how the speculative markets can destroy business rather than grow business, by culling the market through leverage against share prices to reduce competition- which corporate conglomerates hate. The best widget maker may not win- if the share price is the barometer of your widget company's health and that share price is in a rigged game, you are going to be squeezed out of the widget business.