I'm probably wrong about this and I'll probably get told so and downvoted to hell, but to throw my $.02 in to the mix I think the fundamental issue is that the

I'm probably wrong about this and I'll probably get told so and downvoted to hell, but to throw my $.02 in to the mix I think the fundamental issue is that the stock market doesn't reflect reality at all anymore. Which isn't a novel point, a bunch of other commenters are saying the same thing. I think the only thing I have to add is that a small army of forex bots, automated buybacks, and zombie index funds has made it so that the stock market is programmed to never not boom. A market that reflects reality would be governed by supply and demand, not by seeing a ticker go up or a graph go up and to the right. But that's what investors want, so that's what all these mechanical interventions are optimized to do. So why is the stock market booming? Because that's what it was programmed to do. (Yes, yes, cite my sources, but it's a Friday and I'm lazy)