The stock market has nothing to do with the economy. The wealth are making hand over fist in this crisis, while everyday people are facing catastrophic loss. It's pretty much business as usual.

The middle class is heavily invested in the stock market even if they don't own stock or have a 401K or IRA, and benefit from a high market. If you work for city government (or the private sector) they're big owners of mutual funds, your job might not exist otherwise.

@3 Ok, so that argument I would characterize as stock ownership is now spread over a much wider share of the public than ever before so traditional ways of analyzing fluctuations may no longer apply- there will now be going forward an inherent bias toward stock price inflation.
Well, maybe.
A separate, related argument I hear is that with bond returns in the crapper and the world-wide reach of the pandemic, there exists no good alternative to stocks.
Well, yeah, sure. But.
Neither explanation satisfies.
The employment numbers are shockingly bad, ditto projections for GDP, international travel and trade, retail, agriculture, real estate, you name it.
Quite separate from CV-19 the gas and oil economies of several states are staring at crisis situations.
There is every prospect that earnings statements will be horrific, profits (when there are any to be found) will be lower.
And yet... the markets go up. By a lot.
I don't have an explanation. I am puzzled by this.

it's so weird to discuss employment while much of the country is still in a legally enforced "lockdown" state of affairs. yeah it's pretty dark at night too. the beetle is on it's back. the stock market is partly a reflection of expectations of when the beetle flips back over and goes back to pushing dung or whatever beetles do. good questions though, it's wild that the stock market isn't at 18k or less still considering - not that I am an expert. one could expect pretty bad financial news for a while as people are hunkered down, many not working, and most spending way less money while reading daily fear porn from their favorite "news" sources.

@3 Pensions for government workers are celebrated by Republicans as "stock ownership" from one side of their mouths and villified as "unsustainable government spending" from the other.

Pick a lane.

It's actually quite simple: The half-century long class war is over, and Plantation America's cruel, greedy, sadistic oligarchs have achieved total victory. Now that the Fed is funding them directly through QE Infinity, they're gorging on their stolen national loot. Profits don't matter, revenues don't matter, and customers don't matter.

They've won.

People are confused by the stock market surge and concurrent collapse of the paltry economic safety net, while not realizing that they're working exactly as designed. We use the economic and political systems of a genocidal 18th-century racist kleptocracy, and the only true goal is to keep our worst citizens in power forever as they rape our country and kill us.

@6: I just state facts. You're the one trying to craft a narrative that requires a lane.

@7: I suppose that's one way to look at it.

@8 Just asking questions, raindrop. Just asking questions.

@9 OK - though note there are no question marks in @6.

It's going to have to severely dip again when the trillion dollar stimulus runs out, which may happen in wave 2 this fall, unless there's a scientific breakthrough of some kind for testing before then.

My guess. Either way, I think I'm going to ride this thing out the way an IRA has to.

Can we increase taxes on the wealthy and pass universal healthcare and free high quality education already? At least in WA state?

@ 11,

No.

And the billionaire oligarchs will gleefully murder every last one of us for another dollar for themselves.

Which President stated “this is an ownership society”?
Risk risk risk. Where’s the risk?
1. Cash in a bank or stock in a company - which do you choose?
2. Historically, savings provided a lower rate of return but with much lower risk - usually backed with a government guarantee.
3. Today, bailouts have given stocks a similar “government backed guarantee.”
4. Next risk, inflation. - no brainer here - dollar loses value, “stuff” goes up in dollar denominated value.
5. The government prints enough money, and that $50k in savings won’t buy a loaf of future bread while that Boeing factory your buddy owns a (2020 purchased) fractional amount of - still churns out “new, improved 737 Max8As in 2030 when bread is $50 a loaf.
Own something - anything if inflation is a serious risk . (Well except for already issued US government debt which China btw owns about $3 trillion of)

Time: Baby boomers are still driving a good portion of the market and are in retirement sitting on 401(k) money and are using it to pay for bread.
Fear of inflation coupled with paltry almost zero savings rates - they see inflation coming and it’s of greater potential pain then a market dip.
So they are standing pat .
Let Wall Street traders wildly speculate on day to day value - I’ll go play golf.

Im a day trader for 4+ years, todays markets are nothing like 5/10/15 years ago. Quant firms and algorithmic trading has created an artificial valuation based around short squeezes (please research charles if you are not aware), option contracts (derivatives) speculation and never ending QE. Each day the job reports has come out the market has been green. This is explained as a view on the street that the unemployment numbers will get better but is largely in part to Short sided traders that are anticipation a sell off on bad job numbers then have to buy the shares back they are shorting when the trade goes against them. This accelerates the moves to the upside further inflating the bubble. All you need to do is to look at the stock price of TESLA, Virgin Galactic, Beyond Meat to get an idea of how the game is played. The market for the big players has nothing to do with main street it is a casino that uses corporate earnings/debt to play the game.

Four things are happening.

1 - many people got fired, especially women and POC - women and POC tend to have low stock holdings and mostly bond and annuities, so the money left is going into stocks.

2 - many people still working are in index funds, heavily overweighted by top execs, so stock buys in ETFs and mutuals are automatically buying up stocks. I actually increased from 32 percent income to 40 percent in stock/bond buys (95/5) in April, then reverted to my normal 32 percent of income.

3 - people are treating this as a one-off - you buy stocks for 5+ year returns, bonds for 3-5 year, and various treasuries and such for 3 or less. From this perspective, especially if a millennial, this is when you increase stock buys (most millenials invest 15 percent, boomers did 10 percent, x-gen gave up and now got fired too so they get nothing)

4 - animal spirits - fossil fuels are dying, so buying up renewables ETFs cheap is a smart move, avoiding bonds and treasuries which are crashing out, and realizing REITs were a bubble ha ha ha you loser rent-seeking landlords you lose.