It MIGHT make sense

The expression “stock markets are not the economy” may have never been truer.

The S&P 500, an index that tracks the country's largest publicly traded companies, has all but erased its pandemic losses and closed within a fraction of a percentage point of its all-time high Thursday.

[...]

Unemployment stands at 10.2 percent as thousands of businesses remain closed. Many of the jobs shed when businesses closed their doors for extended lockdowns have not come back, and the jobless rate remains at its highest level since the Great Depression.

Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera, says that equity markets are enjoying a V-shaped recovery even as the real economy is experiencing a slower, U-shaped recovery.

“It does not make sense,” he said.

[...]

Last month, for example, Yelp found that 26,000 restaurants had closed, almost 16,000 of them permanently.

“Think about the workers who lost their jobs, whose benefits have been cut and who are uncertain about paying their rent.” he said. “Those are the consumers, they’re the ones who are supposed to be buying things.” Consumer confidence fell in 41 states over the course of July, according to Morning Consult, particularly in the South and West, and remains some 24 points below its pre-pandemic average.

So why are markets flying so high?

A central reason for the spike is the Federal Reserve.

  The Hill

You mean the man Trump has blamed for every downturn is taking care of business?

The Fed dropped interest rates to near zero and opened a slew of new lending facilities to keep financial markets afloat. Its balance sheet exploded from roughly $4.3 trillion in mid-March to about $7 trillion today.

[...]

Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, says some of the stock market returns are a bit of an illusion.

“You can make the case that a handful of companies are buoying the stock market as a whole, even when the rest of the stocks aren’t doing a whole lot better,” he said.

Just five companies — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet — make up about a quarter of the S&P 500’s value.

The fact that those tech giants have benefited extraordinarily from the pandemic hides weakness elsewhere. Even the other publicly traded companies, however, are in better shape than the small, private businesses that drive the economy.

[...]

Such firms have access to cheap capital, bond markets, fancy accountants that can find them tax benefits and more cash on hand than the mom and pop shop around the corner.

Yes, folks, America IS an oligarchy.

“This market feels overdone, overvalued, stretched, speculative, pick your adjective,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “There will be a day of reckoning, but who knows when it will occur. The irony is that it might happen after the pandemic.”

One [of] the main threats to the stock market is gridlock in Washington.

[...]

“I think that’s a potential inflection point. The widespread consensus is that the lawmakers will get their act together in the next few weeks. If they don’t, the market’s got a problem,” said Zandi.

Has anybody considered the possibility that the stock market is going up on the belief that Joe Biden will be elected president in November and there's a good possibility Democrats will take control of the Senate?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.