Yup. The stock market really is a glorified casino. When they say “the market is not the economy”, it’s true. Stocks can be evaluated on all kinds of numbers like P/E ratios, etc, but it’s ultimately worth whatever traders are willing to gamble on it.

And savvy corporations and investors both can prepare and adjust for economic downturns. The economy and the market are very loosely coupled.

Corrections and recessions are often relatively short-lived, too. The general long-term trend is ever upwards. Eventually the whole system will collapse, of course, but that could be decades away.