Some sectors of the economy are strong, but other sectors are doing extremely poorly. Agriculture and mining have been hit by several recessions (two consecuti

Some sectors of the economy are strong, but other sectors are doing extremely poorly. Agriculture and mining have been hit by several recessions (two consecutive quarters of negative growth) over the past four years, while sectors like finance and technology are doing very well. The mining and natural resources sector was hit by a recession in ~2015 that was worse than the 2008 crash. The problem is finance is by far the largest sector of the US economy, so when you look at aggregate GDP numbers, the US economy looks great because the modest gains in finance are more than compensating for the huge reduction in output in the smaller sectors. It's the same story for the stock market: the market cap of the stock market is heavily weighted towards technology stocks, which is compensating for the poor performance in lagging sectors.