I posted the "K-Shape" chart in the repost below. Lots of bad takes followed. So, here is another chart to show what I thought was easy to understand. For most of the public, they no longer see the stock market as a barometer of the economy. This change occurred after COVID (March 2020, vertical dotted line), as perceptions of the stock market shifted. See the bottom panel, the rolling correlation is the most negative ever (61 years of data shown). This means that rising stock prices no longer make the "average" person feel better about the economic outlook, as was almost always the case for the 50 years leading up to 2020. Why? Maybe too much money printing to "save" the stock market in the spring of 2020, while most were still unemployed and sheltering in place, followed by the devastation 9% inflation in 2022 caused to personal finances, left them thinking the stock market is a giant casino divorced from economic reality. Add to this that a majority of the population has a near 0% savings rate. Simply put, the love paycheck-to-paycheck and have nothing left over to buy stocks. And they might also not understand the extreme concentration of the stock market (47% of the S&P 500 is AI-related), since their companies are not booming like those in Silicon Valley. The result is that stock indices are booming while the general public thinks the economy is terrible. This is unlike what we have seen in many decades. Or, a "K-Shaped" economy.