Nothing epitomizes what we've experienced in the market and the economy from 2020 until now quite like this chart. It compares the price of Zoom (ZM) stock, the poster child of the work-from-home movement, with that of ExxonMobile (XOM).
ZM entered 2020 with a market capitalization of under $20bn, but ended the year valued at about $100bn. At its absolute peak in the autumn of 2020 it was worth more than $160bn, surpassing even XOM, an old-economy titan that traces its roots back to John Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.
At the same time, XOM headed the other way, as the pandemic brought the global economy to a standstill. The price of a barrel of oil briefly went negative as there was no place to put it.
XOM’s market recovery first began when Pfizer, et al, announced that they had developed a strong slate of anti-Covid vaccines in November 2020. This also signaled that it was time for workers to head back to the office, lessening the need for every meeting to be held on Zoom. But it is the supply-chain disruptions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has really sent oil prices and Exxon’s shares soaring, putting us in the situation we're in now. (h/t Financial Times).