Financial Markets Wall Street

It seems so illogical. How can the U.S. stock market be setting records when gasoline prices are still expensive and the war with Iran is still going? But for Wall Street, everything eventually comes back to a different, basic question: How much money are companies making? And at the moment, they’re earning enough that investors are willing to pay higher prices than ever for a piece of ownership of U.S. companies. Here’s a look at what’s been behind the market’s surprising strength and how the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts once again made back all its losses.