Wall St's benchmark S&P 500 returned to within a whisker of its record high from Feb. 19 this week - a dramatic round trip amid a devastating pandemic that saw it lose more than a third of its value in just 23 trading days but return to its perch just 100 subsequent trading days from the March low. Like the pandemic's effect on the wider economy, the aggregate return masks a big dispersion of winners and losers from the shock. Tech and communication sectors are already 10% above pre-pandemic levels, while energy stocks remain down a whopping 30% and financials are almost a fifth shy of Feb 19.
Chart by Ritvik Carvalho and commentary by Mike Dolan.
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