What record levels of uncertainty mean for the stock market

Contrarians see a silver lining in the Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index recently hitting an all-time high.

This index, created by Scott Baker of Northwestern University, Nick Bloom of Stanford University and Steven Davis of the University of Chicago, measures the frequency of newspaper articles that contain references to the economy, policy and uncertainty. As you can see from the accompanying chart, this index recently broke its previous record, which was set in early 2000 during the initial phase of the economic lockdown accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic.