Tldr: Economic data is backwards looking, stock prices are forward looking, and economic growth doesn’t directly translate to stock gains because of the rapid increase in the number of companies representing that growth.
Here is a good video for some of the newer investors to understand why negative news, such as unemployment #s can move stocks / indexes green.
“If you knew what was going to happen in the economy, you still wouldn’t necessarily know what was going to happen to the stock market” – Buffet.
Its all about expectations and if reality falls short, meets, or exceeds expectations.
Unemployment for instance, losing 1 million jobs can seem horrible (and is), but if the market was forecasting 3 million jobs lost, its actually a really good scenario that could move the market up (simplifying and not accounting for other factors obviously)
AC