Markets Can't Avoid the Reality of a Dark Winter
The closure of New York schools has brought home the heavy toll that the resurgent pandemic is likely to exact.
Things are looking bleak, even for Wall Street’s fearless girl.
Photographer: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
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Well this makes a change. For months, it has been necessary to explain that the stock market is driven by what money companies will make in the future, not the past, and so it can look through bad things that are happening in the present. But after a strange day Wednesday, which started with more fantastic news that the vaccines against Covid-19 appear to be both effective and safe, it’s now necessary to explain that when markets have already priced in good things for the future, they can be derailed by bad news in the present. This is particularly true if the misfortune is close to home.