Are you confusing the value of the DJIA with the health of the economy and/or the effects of inflation? But in any event, to use your example of the DOW, you need to look a little further back on the chart to get a grasp of where the issues started. 2/20/20 marked the beginning of an abrupt downtrend that took the market back to 2017 levels over the course of a month. At that point, the government was talking about issuing stimulus checks to individuals and families, and issuing PPP loans to businesses. Immediately afterwards, the market began its sharply steeped incline resulting in the market rising to levels that were nearly 50% higher than even pre-COVID levels (and over 100% the COVID lows). This is also marked the beginning of the sharp increase in real estate prices. And, of course, neither of these are a coincidence, since the average family suddenly had thousands of extra dollars in effectively disposable income that could easily be invested in the market, or used as a down payment on a home. And businesses suddenly got to report the wonderful PPP windfalls as bonuses to their bottom lines, further fueling the investment frenzy that, both, set the market up for an extremely over-bought situation (that we're now witnessing the correction for), and further driving the cost of goods and services up (which also had to do with the supply-and-demand issues due to COVID manufacturing shortages). Yes, the Russia situation didn't help matters much, and definitely resulted in driving gas prices further upwards, but inflation had already been deeply set in by this point, despite the fed's repeated denial up until is was clearly no longer deniable.