Market Sentiment Is Up. But Why? 

2022 was a bad year for stock investors.

Finishing at 33,147, the Dow was down 3,191 points for the year. (In percentage terms, that’s a drop of 8.8%.) That made 2022 the worst year for the Dow since 2008. But in October of last year, the US Stock Market Index rose from 28,692 to 29,795 at the end of the month. It then shot up to 35,605, where it stayed until the end of the year. And then it dropped to 31,851 in mid-March, where it began a climb upwards.

What’s perhaps more interesting is that the speculators are coming back. Meme stocks are up, some as much as 100%, and Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin miner, is up 458% for the year.

What does that mean? I’m not sure. My guess is that it is a response to the liquidity being pumped into the economy and all the media excitement about the advent of a new economic age led by artificial intelligence.