From what I can tell, in both the Harry Potter books and the movies (cards on the table: I paid very little attention to the movies), wands appear to act as a conductor of magical energy rather than being magical in and of themselves. A witch or wizard can, in times of great stress, perform rudimentary magic without the use of a wand; non-magical folk cannot use wands (even a squib like Filch couldn't perform magic with a wand), and I do not recall there being an event where a wand misfired on its own (Ollivander's method of storing wands would be disastrous if wands were prone to do that).
Furthermore, the idea of wands being a conductor for magical energy makes sense in terms of the specific materials used to make the wands. I had wondered why some enterprising witch or wizard had not attempted to mass produce wands using a cheap wood composite like MDF and the most basic of wand cores, but if each wood and core has a different level of magical conductivity, then a composite wood would be highly ineffective.
With that preamble out of the way, my question is this: Is there any evidence in the books that contradict this interpretation of how a wand works? Is there any canon evidence of wands having power in and of themselves?