Major stock market indices have surpassed their record highs from early last year before the pandemic, and investors are hoping 2020 may actually end on a happy note.
The Dow Jones average lost more 10,000 points in under five weeks when the pandemic first hit the U.S., but by last week, it was hitting a new record close. UNO business economics professor Mark Rosa says the country responded to the pandemic by looking for solutions, got unemployment stabilized, and the federal reserve kept injecting money into the economy.
"The combination of which has pushed the market to all time highs," Rosa explained. "It went from 29,000 at the beginning of the year basically down to 18 (thousand), so that was somewhat frightening, but it's gained all of that, plus some."
Rosa said some sectors -- travel, for example -- are still hurting, but other areas, like grocery store companies and tech stocks have prospered.
"Products and services that didn't care about COVID, so Google did well, Apple did well, Tesla did well," said Rosa. He says now investors await the change in power at the White House, and potentially the U.S. Senate, to see how it shapes the economy.
