[US Navy Vet]

Because “Wall Street” and the Stock “Market” is a New York and East Coast Elites RIGGED “Game”.

[Pontiac]

Two words

Quantitative Easing

[Tula Git]

Artificial super low interest rates and unlimited Fed pumping...nothing else.

[discostu]

Really? People find this confusing? Probably not. Probably just a guy looking for hits. The answer is pretty simple. There are different type of stock traders, some are buy and hold, others are buy and sell. Buy and sell traders don’t actually care about the value of the company in relation to the price of the stock, they just care is somebody will buy for more than they paid. And with internet trading buy and sell traders took over the market. Stock prices no longer have any relationship to the economy or performance, they just relate to buzz and whether or not somebody else will pay more soon.

[Uncle Miltie]

QE $ have to go somewhere.

Call it “inflation”.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

When the markets imploded in the Fall of 2008, most large US corporations:

1) Significantly cut unnecessary spending
2) Let go of unproductive and unnecessary personnel
3) Straightened out their balance sheets and moved to large cash surpluses.

Things the Federal Government should be doing.

[PGR88]

Because big banks, and right behind them hedge funds, can borrow at Zero % interest from Central Banks, looking for central-planning, proto-Keynsian “stimulus” of demand.

Banks cash reserves, due to QE, have never been higher, so that money has to go somewhere.

Everyone knows its what Central Banks and politicians want, so stocks rising has been as close to a sure thing as exists.

[DaveMSmith]

With oil prices sliding, expect it to continue.... I think :)

[HMS Surprise]

Easy. Where else are you going to put your 401k?

[blueunicorn6]

If you are a gambler, the stock market has been paying off.
People like easy money.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

Maybe they are looking forward to January 20, 2017? ;-)

[what's up]

Stocks have done well because Obama hasn't been able to get much of his program passed. And the fact that there was a wave election shows that there is lessening support for socialism.

Carbon credits never passed Congress. Now Inhofe will be Chair of Environment.

Obama has adopted much of George Bush's WOT platform. And most people are taking for granted that there have to be reforms to healthcare.

Anyone here Schumer and Harkin denounce the ACA this week? That is something the stock market takes heart in.

[madprof98]

Odd that businesses are supposedly booming while so many people seem barely able to get by.

[PGalt]

Progressives ($ocialists) propping up a $ymbol.

[Rockingham]

Due to massive public debt loads, the US, Europe, and Japan are engaging in the low interest rate policy that economists refer to as "financial repression." Among other effects, this makes the dividends and gains in value offered by stocks more attractive, thus boosting stock markets around the world. In addition, low interest rates help to spur investment, consumption, and economic expansion.

Over the long term, financial repression fosters a bias toward inflation. Even over-leveraged governments find fiscal discipline politically hard, and socialist policies favor high taxes and excessive regulations that discourage economic growth. In such an environment, reliance on monetary expansion to suppress interest rates tends to generate inflation, often undoing much of the benefit of financial repression when interest rates on public debt spike and increase the burden on borrowers.

[mjp]

Increases in money created out of thin air leads to increases in aggregate demand, which leads to increases in revenue of individual business firms, which leads to increases in amount and rate of profit, which leads to increased valuation of firms, which leads to higher stock market prices.

[pgyanke]

Rotation of assets.