Stocks are on an astonishing run. Yet threats lurk
We assess what could bring the bull market to an end
![The stockmarket bull getting attacked by arrows going downwards signifying the attacks will lower its returns.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240720_FND001.jpg)
All around the world, stockmarkets have been rising at a breakneck pace. Whether you are in America, Europe, Japan or India, prices listed on a bourse near you have spent most of this year setting fresh records, only to break them again straight away (see chart 1). America’s S&P 500 index has jumped by over 70% since a trough in 2022, and risen during 28 of the past 37 weeks, its best streak in more than three decades. True, Chinese investors are in a funk, with stocks yet to recover from a plunge that began last year. But they cut lonely figures: exclude China from MSCI’s index of emerging-market shares, and the remainder have been clocking rapid gains, too.
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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Matadors gather”
Finance & economics July 20th 2024
- Stocks are on an astonishing run. Yet threats lurk
- Why investors have fallen in love with small American firms
- At last, Wall Street has something to cheer
- Japan’s strength produces a weak yen
- China’s leaders face miserable economic-growth figures
- YIMBY cities show how to build homes and contain rents
- Americans are wrong to wish for an era of stable bipartisanship
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