The New Roaring Twenties? Why You Need to Be Wary of Market Fever. Post-pandemic optimism can easily cross over into exuberance and excessive risk-taking.

While the country has struggled before, it has never been tested with so many consequential and diverse challenges at once. First and foremost, COVID-19 has been the most significant and widespread pandemic of modern times, the fallout of which has affected lives on countless fronts. Second, in addition to the health implications of the coronavirus, the U.S. has experienced the most precipitous economic drop since the Great Depression, with massive job losses and shutdowns of numerous sectors of the economy. Next, last year's racial unrest has renewed attention to long-standing fissures in the country's social fabric. Last but not least, deep political divisions and the spread of misinformation have damaged democratic norms, in part leading to the first breach of the U.S. Capitol since 1812.

The peaks of most of these once-in-a-generation challenges seen to be behind us now. And, while the road to full recovery as to all of them will be long — and there are many miles to go — Americans are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

The Roaring 1920s