What value does stock really have if there is no dividend?

NONE!

you have just figured out the greatest scam of the century.

without a guaranteed share of earnings, a stock is nothing but paper.

its only value is in the hope that you can find a bigger sucker to sell it to.

If earnings increase, the stock's price will usually rise because stocks tend to be priced on multiples of earnings. Take Apple. It had no dividend until a couple of years ago, yet it went from $11 per share in early 2004 to over $600 per share in 2012 (now at $489), most of that period with no dividend. Ask the people who bought it at $11 and sold at $600 how they did in spite of no dividend.

While dividends are the only direct income for an investor, the total return of holding a stock is the dividend plus the capital gain of the stock price.

Investors who buy stocks that do not pay dividends generally prefer to see these companies reinvest their earnings to fund expansion and other projects which investors hope will yield greater returns -- via rising stock price.

The only value a stock has is what someone is willing to pay for it.