Things are finally looking up as far as treating the covid-19 pandemic. The current economy, with countless businesses shuttered and millions of unemployed people, is another story but you wouldn’t know it from looking at stock market valuations.
If the pandemic was the defining event of 2020, it wasn’t the only factor affecting markets. These continue to be ultra-low interest rates and quantitative easing (printing money to buy bonds – and other assets). Central bankers appear to be blind to the relationship between monetary policies and yield-seeking speculation in riskier assets.