NEW YORK - President Donald Trump’s tariffs have spooked investors, with fears of an economic downturn driving a stock market sell-off that has wiped out US$4 trillion (S$5.3 trillion) from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Mr Trump’s agenda.
i think the commenter is just baffled at how drastically overvalued (over hyped) so many stocks are - a well known problem where speculative over investment can and does distort the whole economy and has power over the whole population. see for example, speculation bubbles like the dotcom overvaluation or subprime mortgages, or Theranos, or Bitcoin, or even how Tesla stock was being traded higher than the next 6-8 major car companies combined.
in other words, stock prices are a bunch of bullshit.
stocks arent exactly the same as “money” in the common sense so it confuses people when headlines say money was lost or wiped out. but stocks are similar to money in that they are placeholders for value, however much more susceptible to wild devaluations. because ultimately they’re just speculative bets on what something is worth and can fluctuate rapidly, as rapidly and suddenly as human emotions.