Thread by @hughhowey

A THREAD about the stock market:

Let me start by saying that I know nothing about the stock market.

Let me follow that up by saying that neither does anyone else.

What I love about the stock market is that it's made up of us. It's a bunch of deranged humans trying to guess what a bunch of other deranged humans are thinking.

Some of the valuation is based on economic activity. But a lot is human psychology. Hence the booms and busts.

I remember the dot com bubble very well. And the housing bubble. Both times, I watched friends and family get sucked into the allure of easy money. Both times, I witnessed the suffering when the Ponzi Schemes and pyramids crumbled.

The stock market is rallying right now, and there are a bajillion articles and theories on why this might be. The truth is that no one knows. The Fed printing money and buying securities? Okay. Vaccine hopes? Sure. No other good options out there? Fine.

Plenty to speculate about.

Let me add to the speculation (again, as a know-nothing).

I think there are two other possibilities, and neither are very good to consider.

One thing that's contributing reminds me of the dot com and housing bubbles, where Average Joe is getting involved to not get left out.

I know people who have never invested who are investing. The investing apps are booming in popularity. No one wants to miss the boat...

...even if that boat is the Titanic.

If you're wondering how stocks can rally while people are at home without work, it might be because people are at home without work but with a computer and a smartphone and a desire to make a quick buck.

This will have a happy ending for a lot of small-time investors if the world goes back to normal quickly. That's possible, but it seems unlikely. Even if the chance of harm is very small, the fear of this virus is going to change behaviors and form new, lasting habits.

Which leads to my second point, which I find more interesting (and scary) as a futurist. The market might be realizing that the post-coronavirus world is a far more efficient one for the haves. It might be a sign that much greater economic inequity is around the corner.

The market adores consolidation. The bigger the company, the better. More efficient. More profits. Easier to invest in. Buying stock in Dominoes (DPZ) or McDonald's (MCD) is easy. Buying stock in all the myriad one-location restaurants is impossible.

Buying stock in Amazon and Walmart is easy. Buying stock in all the little mom-and-pop hardware stores is impossible.

Lowe's and Home Depot? Easy.

Local roofing company or plumping contractor? Impossible.

Even with a vaccine by early 2021 (optimistic), our eating and shopping habits are going to shift.

Maybe not yours, but enough people to make a difference. These are businesses with small margins. They can't be profitable at 75% former capacity.

The big companies are going to thrive in the post-COVID world. Big grocery delivery companies at the expense of corner stores. Big distributed work-from-home software companies at the expense of small main street offices.

Amazon and Walmart are doing great. Lots of little shops are shuttered. We were already moving toward a future that was more heavily automated, more work-from-home, more home-delivery.

Our collective foot just hammered the accelerator.

Even if the overall economy suffers, that's not what the stock market measures, especially not the big indexes. They measure the biggest companies. Those companies are going to get a boost. Not just from Fed bailouts, but by our spending habits.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is made up of 30 stocks. The S&P 500 is made up of (weirdly) 505 stocks. The world is obsessed with these indexes, but they might not tell a complete story. If they do, the story they're telling us seems like a dystopic one.

The market might be telling us that there are more wealthy CEOs and darling IPOs in our future, and also a further erosion of a middle class that can earn a decent wage. Consolidation looks great on balance sheets. But if it leaves too many people behind...

...then we're just building a different kind of pyramid scheme, one that appears solid from a distance but is surely crumbling.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

I probably am.