It was a year when expensive stocks grew even more costly. Given the high unemployment rate and the fall in GDP, everyone expected the stock market to crash. Yet, the markets bounced back and are higher than the pre-pandemic levels.
The Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress worked together to provide stimulus packages to various affected communities. While we can debate the speed and effectiveness of these measures, the data clearly showed that the vast majority of Americans could use the funds to augment their net worth.
Zoom became part of our everyday vocabulary as everyone started working from home, and all events were conducted virtually. Closure of gyms resulted in people working out at home using Peloton. Moderna using their mRNA technology took only six weeks to devise and manufacture initial lots of its vaccine
Tesla’s inclusion in the S&P 500 forced all the index funds that track the S&P to purchase tens of billions of dollars of Tesla stock in a bid to track the index as closely as possible. As a result, the stock spiked higher in price to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
According to the SSRN paper “Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?” authored by Bessembinder, ExxonMobil (Ticker: XOM) created a staggering amount of $1 trillion in wealth between 1926 and 2016.