How connected is the stock market to the economy, really?

I think this has become a recurring theme in this subreddit lately : people questioning why the market isn’t crashing despite the war in Iran, while others (myself included) argue that you can’t time the market and should just stay invested, and that the market always goes up, regardless of the news. It makes me wonder: how closely is the stock market actually tied to the real economy? With inflation still relatively high, holding cash or relying on savings accounts leads to losing purchasing power rapidly. People need somewhere to put their money, and that's the stock market. The market doesn’t go up directly because a war ends or down because one begins. It moves because people buy and sell. So is it really driven by underlying company fundamentals/the state of the economy?