The stock market keeps booming, but look closer, and it gets more curious.
The stock market is meant to be a good forward indicator of the economy.
It does not always work like that. The economist Paul Samuelson once, and quite famously said, it has predicted nine of the past five recessions.
But it is a guide, albeit not a perfect one.
But if that is right we have reason for cheer and absolutely no reason to be anxious.
Frankly, US stocks have hit new highs so often that it has ceased to be news. This month, the S&P 500 has finished the day setting a new record nine times.
In the UK, stocks are doing well, they are just not excelling like they are in the US - the FTSE 100 has hit a record on only one occasion this month.
But it’s if you look at volatility that things get interesting.
It has now been over a year since the S&P 500 fell by more than three per cent from peak over a period of a few days. It has never seen a period like this before.
The VIX index, a measure of volatility that tracks the moving average of the S&P 500, is also known as the fear index. It went mad in 2008, scaling new heights, but this year it has been running along bottom for months on end. On two separate occasions, the VIX fell to a new all time low in November this year.
The fear in the markets is the equivalent to what you get after watching the most awful attempt at a horror movie you have ever seen, you know the type, sharks raining down on us like in the film Sharknado.
But is it all justified?
Well, one day we will see a crash. But many believe that day isn’t close. For one thing, the economic cycle may be enough to justify the euphoria, after-all, we have come out of a very nasty economic downturn. In any case, the latest data on US GDP had the US economy growing by 3.3 per cent (annualised) in Q3. US consumer confidence is hovering around a 21st century high.
