Disease, rioting and mass unemployment – so why are markets soaring?

Despite some pretty strong headwinds in the last year, America’s S&P 500 stock index is close to all-time highs. John Stepek explains why markets seem to be defying gravity.

Display of stock indices © Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Markets are soaring despite everything © Getty
(Image credit: Display of stock indices © Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A colleague working on another magazine sent me a message on Slack yesterday. He said he’d made a bit of money in markets recently, which he was pleased about, as we all are when we make a bit of money in markets.

On the other hand, he said, he still couldn’t quite believe just how strong the rally has been. This apparent disconnect is baffling many more people than just my colleague.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.