The S&P's relentless rise since its March low-point has more than erased any losses since the outbreak of COVID. But many segments of the economy are still in the tank, leading some to ask: has the stock market become unhinged from reality? And if so, when will it all come crashing down?

What are some warning signs?

To make matters more murky, more than 180 S&P 500 companies have pulled their earnings guidance in the lead-up to earnings season.

This has led to wild stock swings recently, both up and down, as companies like FedEx exceeded expectations and Nike missed targets — both after pulling their guidance.

And don't forget RobinHood

The slick trading app — not available in Canada — has attracted swarms of new amateur day-traders who may or may not have a clue what they're doing.

For every dollar in the average RobinHood account, an astounding 25,840 options contracts are traded... about 10x the velocity done by TD Ameritrade account holders.

You might think the wild swings of options trading is a replacement for shuttered casinos and sports betting, and you might be right about that. But we also wonder how much a flood of new amateur money into the markets is driving prices.

+++ The bubble might not just be local either... there are growing concerns about China's frothy stock market too.

What to do when you're stuck between an old ally and neighbour and an emerging superpower and economic powerhouse? That's the puzzle facing the Canadian government, and one that is having real consequences in the case of dealing Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant.

Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou is currently detained in Canada and awaiting extradition to the United States. Many view China's imprisonment of two Canadians — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — as retaliation for the arrest of Meng.

Maybe not surprisingly, Canadian public opinion towards China is at all-time lows and the Trudeau government is beginning to break with the traditional approach of deepening commercial ties with the country.

Why it matters: Huawei wants to build out Canada's 5G telco infrastructure, a bid that is becoming less politically tenable by the day. Shutting out Huawei from the process — as Canadian telcos have more or less done — will have big consequences for our relationship with China overall.

A global headache for China: France, India, and the U.K. are all considering limiting Huawei's involvement in their telecom infrastructure. The British government is likely to kill Huawei's bid to build the country's 5G network this week.

Tesla's soaring stock price — up 269% this year — have pushed Elon Musk past Warren Buffet on the list of world's richest people. Musk's net worth is now $70.5 billion, up $6.1 billion on Friday alone. Not bad for a day's work.

But the electric vehicle maker may soon have stiffer competition as the space heats up. 

They say newspapers are dying but a bit of a bidding war has erupted to purchase TorStar, the publisher of The Toronto Star.

NordStar, a group setup to buy the paper, offered $52 million a couple weeks ago. But an apparently better rival bid has now pushed that figure up to $60 million.

All this interest has nearly doubled TorStar's stock price from the beginning of the year.

The Economics: Interestingly, TorStar has $70 million in cash on their balance sheet and no bank debt, meaning that a sale price of $60 million is still a pretty sweet deal for the buyer.

The NHL is back. Officially. Edmonton and Toronto will host the restarted playoffs beginning with qualifiers and a round robin on August 1st.

And if you've missed hockey, you're about to get more of it than you might be able to handle: the first week of qualifiers will feature 5 to 6 games per day.

The COVID factor: Canada's relatively low levels of COVID make the NHL restart more of a sure thing than other sports, including the NBA which has now got teams inside its DisneyLand bubble. But with more than 15,000 new COVID cases reported in Florida yesterday, there's plenty of skepticism that the season will be back, including from Charles Barkley.