The benchmark S&P 500 stock index, widely viewed as a proxy for the overall U.S. equities market, surged to close at 3,389. …
The benchmark S&P 500 stock index, widely viewed as a proxy for the overall U. S. equities market, surged to close at 3,389.78 points on Tuesday, setting a new all-time high record and wiping out all its COVID-19-driven losses. After plunging dramatically in late February into a bear market that hit bottom on March 23, the S&P 500 has now completed a full V-shaped recovery, rebounding some 55 percent off the pandemic lows and solidifying its new bull market run. The closely-watched index, which gets its name from the fact that it tracks the common stock issued by 500 big-cap companies listed on American stock markets, experienced its shortest bear market in history since plunging to its March 23 bottom. The Wall Street icon posted its largest gain in a 103-day period in 87 years, according to Refinitiv data. Yet equities are not necessarily reflective of the health of the broader economy, experts point out, with unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus sending a tidal wave of liquidity through the financial system. This has led to asset inflation seemingly unmoored from economic fundamentals, with the surge in risky assets like stocks happening in parallel to major gains in traditional risk-free assets like US Treasurys and safe-havens like gold, while weekly jobless claims filings just last week breaking below 1 million, a positive trend but still an elevated number.
