What’s Keeping Stocks Afloat? The ‘Microsoft Market’
The tech giant is a mainstay of the industry that lets companies, governments and people navigate disruptions caused by the coronavirus and other threats.
Defying gravity.
Photographer: Jeenah Moon/Getty ImagesStocks were supposed to be mired in a bear market after they plunged in March as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered business and sent U.S. unemployment to its highest rate since the Great Depression.
Even a 62% recovery by the S&P 500 Index by the middle of May failed to comfort experts like billionaire money managers Stan Druckenmiller and David Tepper , who characterized stocks as the worst investments of their careers. They weren't alone; amid an estimated 47% collapse in gross domestic product, fewer than a quarter of respondents to an Evercore ISI survey said they expected the next 10% move in the market to be higher.