The stock market has not ignored the truly terrible economic data that it has received since mid-March. It just seems like that, given the positive returns of the past few weeks.
And while the COVID-19 bear, that dethroned the 11-year bull, took over Wall Street with historically lightening fast speed, looking at market performance the last few weeks — and overall for the year — it’s clear that the markets were not derailed completely.
This week, as was the case for the last couple of weeks, suggests that the markets — meaning investors — believe things are only going to get better. That sums up the mood on Wall Street pretty well.
For the third week in a row, stocks climbed higher… much higher. This week saw oil prices jump, treasury yields rise to an 11-week high and the U.S. economy add 2.5 million jobs in May.
Yes, the unemployment rate is still over 13%, but the trend line of the last few weeks has been very encouraging, suggesting that jobs are coming back and recovery is happening faster than anticipated.
The market shattered a few purely psychological thresholds, too, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassed 27,000, the S&P 500 left by the 3,000 point level and NASDAQ is within a whisper of 10,000.
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