The bank isn’t alone, either. Ryan Detrick, the chief market strategist for LPL Financial, says that even if Omicron is a concern, the country is prepared to handle it. “Admittedly, we don’t know how effective current vaccines are against Omicron, or how transmissible it is, but we do know that the appetite for another nationwide shutdown is quite low and that these questions should be answered over the coming weeks,” he wrote in a research note. “We remain optimistic that the medical community will quickly create booster shots against the new variant if needed, paving the way for this economic recovery to move forward early next year.” In the past five days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has rocketed up more than 1,000 points and is now approaching an all-time high.
The thing about the stock market is that it’s a bet on the future. It’s a window into what people with money think the world will look like at some point down the road. Take Peloton, the techie-stationary-bike company. The company’s market capitalization reached its all-time high on January 13, right before vaccines started to get widely distributed among the general population. Since then, the share price has plummeted — now down 75 percent from its peak. These days, Wall Street bulls are far more excited about gyms, sweating with strangers, aspirating in humid rooms with low ceilings. Planet Fitness is up 18 percent this year and 4 percent over the past week. Equinox’s parent company is raking in SPAC money. Even the analysts who like it are counseling investor “patience” before the company can start pleasing investors again.
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