Why a Calmer Economy Still Can’t Save Stocks From Crashing
A market can feel unusually forgiving for years — fewer recessions, faster policy fixes, more information reaching more people in less time — and still deliver the kind of gut-punch decline that makes headlines. That combination confuses a lot of investors, because it seems to contradict itself. If the economy is sturdier and traders can react instantly to bad news, shouldn’t the market simply glide upward with the occasional dip, rather than the occasional crash? The evidence says no, and the reason has less to do with economics than with what stocks are actually for.