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Recently, the word "disconnect" is often seen in financial commentary: although the major indices have approached or refreshed their all-time highs, most industries are still struggling in this unprecedented recession.

As a result, many people think that the stock market has been divorced from the real economy. But from another perspective, today's stock market may reflect some of the development trends magnified by the "epidemic economy" to some extent.

Stock prices and indices measure the value created by capital owners, which is different from the value created by the wider real economy, where labour capital as well as tangible and intangible capital plays a role.

In addition, the stock market reflects investors' expectations for future real return on capital. When it comes to the value created by the labor force, unlike the stock market's reflection on the future value of capital, there are no corresponding indicators that can reflect the future value of the labor force. In theory, if the economy is expected to rebound sharply, there may not be much difference in the outlook for the value that capital and labour can create, but only expectations of the value of capital are reflected through the stock market.

When it comes to the reflection of value, there are other factors at play.Nowadays, market valuation depends more and more on intangible assets, especially the ownership and control of data. Today's digital economy gives data unique value creativity and liquidity.A recent study of the S & P 500 found that companies with higher per capita intangible capital had the biggest gains this year, and the lower the per capita intangible capital, the worse the stock performance.

In other words, the relationship between value creation and employment is not as close as it used to be. Although this phenomenon existed before the epidemic, the epidemic accelerated the evolution of the trend. There are two main reasons for this: on the one hand, digital technology is being adopted rapidly in the face of widespread economic shutdown; on the other hand, affected by various quarantine measures and consumers' fear of virus infection, many labour-intensive industries are partially or completely closed during the epidemic, and such enterprises generally create value through labour and tangible assets.

The Dow Jones American Aviation Industry Index is a typical example. Affected by the epidemic, this index has obviously suffered a tremendous impact and has not yet recovered. Although today's aviation industry has added a lot of digital elements, under normal circumstances, the aviation industry still creates value mainly through tangible assets, labor and fuel.

There is no denying that the interest rate policies of the Fed and other major central banks have supported market valuations as a whole. In the current environment, the implementation of the ultra-low interest rate monetary policy is mainly to facilitate the government to issue bonds to raise funds for the financial rescue plan, in order to deal with the impact of the epidemic.

However, while ultra-low interest rates can support market valuations as a whole, they do not explain significant differences in performance between different industries. In addition to listed companies, other parts of the economy are also being hit.

From the perspective of the wider real economy, low-income families and many small businesses with weak balance sheets do not have much to mitigate the impact of the epidemic, and many labour-intensive industries (hotels, restaurants and bars, etc.) that create a large number of jobs in normal times have also been partially closed. In response to this situation, the government has introduced a large-scale rescue policy in an attempt to mitigate the impact on many areas at the expense of rising national debt.

Not all areas of the economy have been hit.The current crisis has actually pushed up the valuations of some companies in which most of them are not owned by low-income families and small businesses with weak balance sheets. These highly valued companies are in the hands of individuals and institutions with good balance sheets, whose assets are strong enough to withstand the impact of the economy.

With the arrival of the post-epidemic era and the rebound of the economy as a whole, labour-intensive industries with low per capita intangible capital are likely to perform well for some time.Even in this case, the influence of digital technology in the economy is likely to expand, and the trend beneficial to intangible capital is expected to continue.

In the post-epidemic era, it is not surprising that intangible capital-intensive industries continue to enjoy advantages. This is because, in most cases, fixed costs account for a considerable proportion of the cost structure of these industries, while marginal costs are low or even negligible. As a result, some of these platforms have great scalability and have a lot of power in market pricing and market access.

We can draw the following conclusions: first of allThe epidemic has accelerated the evolution of some existing trends, that is, companies with relatively few employees and relatively high intangible capital can create higher value.SecondlyThis trend will continue in the post-epidemic era, although the pace of development will slow down.In addition, traditional industries will recover, but the differentiation of value creativity caused by differences in intangible capital per capita will continue and become a major challenge for society and economy in the future.

The impression that the stock market is out of touch with the real economy is that people tend to focus only on certain indices. No index alone can fully reflect the overall market, let alone reflect the overall economy and development trends. In the epidemic economy, the performance of the stock index is more elusive than usual because of the huge differences in the value created by different industries.

Finally, considering that the value created by digital intangible assets is much higher than normal, it is difficult to reverse the trend of rising wealth inequality. Under the "epidemic economy"For the industries at the bottom of the wealth and value chain, because they have relatively few intangible capital and digital assets, it is also difficult to enjoy the dividends brought by this economic and technological tide.。