The Atlantic

Why Does the Stock Market Keep Going Up?

A great mystery of our time

Two things have been true so far in 2017: The news cycle keeps spiraling downward, and the stock market keeps going up.

Consider a brief review of the year’s chaos. In domestic news, Washington’s legislative machine is even more broken than normal, and President Donald Trump—tweeting furiously, while under investigation for possible collusion and obstruction—has oscillated between sympathy for white nationalists and recklessness toward North Korea. A series of historic natural disasters have ravaged Houston, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and northern California. Abroad, the U.K. is sleepwalking toward divorce with Europe, a crisis with a Middle East ally is brewing, and a missile flew over Japan.

But what observable effect has this cavalcade of chaos had on the stock market? None, really. The S&P 500 is in the middle of one of the strongest bull runs . The Tuesday in an interview with CBS News.

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