As to my own moment of bafflement today, seeing the U.S. stock markets while reading the news on COVID and the economy. I'm not sure what is worse: optimism based on recovery hopes, cynicism based on Federal Reserve interventions, or selfishness based on pumping and dumping when things go (further) south.
For stock market movements you have to also keep in mind that people aren't just betting on the companies, they're betting on what they think other people will do in response to the news. So vew few people are actually thinking "what difference will this news have to the company's bottom line?" they are thinking "what difference will this news cause to the market". But, everyone is thinking the same thing and they're making trades based on those predictions, and the resultant shifts in the market are somewhat ironically
aggregate effects of everyone making the same predictions.
So if there's a ray of optimism then some people will buy the stocks because they think
other people will buy the stocks and then they can cash out later. Whether or not they think the company is actually going to do well is not a major consideration. It has about the same level of connection to the actual value of the stocks as toilet paper hoarding has to the long term supply stability of toilet paper. In both cases, stock surges and toilet paper hoarding, people are acting because they're making predictions about how
other people willl respond to events, and those actions become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and thus the original determination "this stock is about to rise because of this news" or "there won't be any toilet paper on the shelves in response to this news" both turn out to be true statements.