Financial markets can be bewildering at the best of times. But the coronavirus has made the task of understanding them so much harder.

The markets are supposed to anticipate economic developments. Yet early in the year, stocks ignored the looming pandemic. Only after the coronavirus hit hard in the United States did prices collapse like a deflating balloon.

By late March, thanks to the intervention of the Federal Reserve, stocks began rising sharply, even though the death toll was rising, unemployment claims were skyrocketing and the economy was shriveling.

These momentum shifts raise critical questions for ordinary people who have put their savings into the markets.