Rise

20.5M Americans lost their jobs in April, but the stock market rallies — what gives?

Snacks / Saturday, May 09, 2020
_The economy vs. the stock market_
_The economy vs. the stock market_

Honestly horrifying... The April Jobs Report. A jaw-dropping 20.5M Americans lost their jobs last month, bringing the unemployment rate to 14.7%. Just a year ago it was 3.6%. And we thought the 870K jobs we lost in March was bad...

  • It's the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression in 1933, when unemployment hit 25% — it's also the greatest job loss (by far) since the gov began tracking monthly job gains/losses in 1939.
  • 8.7M jobs were lost during the '08 financial crisis — in the decade after that, US employers added 22.8M jobs to the economy. The COVID-19 crisis wiped out ten years of job gains in just a month. And probably more...
  • People are only considered unemployed when they're actively searching for a new job — many aren't right now, partly because many companies aren't hiring and the stay-at-home orders. If you include these people, the unemployment rate is probably more like 23%.

But Wall Street is popping bottles... The stock market saw the unemployment numbers and barely flinched:

  • The Nasdaq recovered all its 2020 losses and is up over 30% since its low on March 23 — the tech-heavy index is now higher than its December 2019 value.
  • The S&P 500 — the index which measures the stock prices of the largest 500 US companies — has soared 31% since March 23 (so has the Dow).

The stock market isn't the economy... And stock prices don't necessarily reflect economic health (as we're seeing today) — they reflect future expectations.

  • The economy is like a soccer player who just broke his/her leg, and the stock market is like fans hoping the player will heal quickly and win matches.
  • Because of its forward-looking nature, the market can recover faster than the economy. The current rally reflects optimism about health-related progress, government intervention, and the resilience of big tech companies (which affect market indexes heavily because of their large market values).
  • TBD if the optimism is justified — it could take a while for jobs (and the economy) to bounce back to game shape. Oh and remember the trade war?

Get Your News

Subscribe and thrive

Snacks provides fresh takes on the financial news you need to start your day. Chartr provides data visualizations on business, entertainment, and society. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.