The stock market's rise is Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Microsoft and Google. Take away those companies and the market is down. Note that profits at those companies are also down, and that their earnings reflect buybacks. The bond market is battening down for bad weather. The stock market reflects the fact that 80% of trading is algorithmic and everyone is piling their money willy-nilly into index funds so they don't have to think about it. It's been a long time since I've read an NPR article that didn't annoy me.
Bill Clinton is credited with the rise of the stock market in the 1990's, when all us Silicon Valley geeks know that it was just the payoff from DARPA spending in the 60's and 70's. When the web began, it addressed the problems with the old supply chain, and created new ways to make money and to make fake money (stock options, IPOs, etc.). So in the blink of an eye, a change the size of the industrial revolution takes place in the marketplace, billion dollar companies become common, and salaries are paid in stocks. And Clinton gets the credit for a booming economy, when all he actually did was occupy the Big Chair at the right time. Same thing is happening now. We have the second wave of the internet - the consolidation and domination period - where a few players become ridiculously profitable (or, at least valuable) and prop up an economy that in every single other respect is teetering on collapse. (For historical context of consolidation, see: Hearst, railroads, and cotton.) The thing that busts my brain, though is the completely inexplicable resiliency of the investment market, with Trump in the White House. Six months ago, a single out-of-place word from a high-placed official in the White House or the Fed would cause shockwaves through the market. Because the market likes stable. It likes predictable. And any strangeness at the top was seen as a "sign", and the market would tank. Now Business is all jazzed they have a "businessman" in the White House... but the guy is complete fucking nutter. He says shit that would have tanked the market six months ago and driven the economy into a tailspin... and all the trading floor goes silent... and all the traders look carefully around the room at everyone else... silent... waiting... and.... ... nothing. NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS. So it looks like business supports Trump and his lunatic destabilizing business tweets, because the market doesn't tank every time he opens his mouth like it did with Obama. I'm pretty fucking fed up with it all, honestly. "Inaction = Support. That's just bullshit. Business needs to take the reins again, and explain that they want the jobs, markets, and profits of clean power, and Trump needs to dump his utter Dickensian fetish with coal. (For one example...) Grr.