What they miss, as do the mass of big name pundits, is a discussion of 'where is all the moolah coming from?' that keeps fiduciaries expensive and interest rate low. You can't have a continuing rise in bond prices, and the necessary fall in the interest rate, without a continuing supply of moolah. Where is it coming from? Part of it is clearly The Manchurian President's tax giveaway, which re-filled corporate coffers. The CxO class controlling said coffers having no idea how to spend it productively, go the fiduciaries route. The result is explicable by an Econ 101 student: demand drives up price.
... yields on junk debt remained low, a sign that investors are too willing to take on the risk of bonds held by companies with less-than-stellar credit.
Well, NO. The only reason they're doing something so stupid is the driving stupidity of lack of invention in their own businesses: for the better part of a decade there's been a flood of cheap money available to boost physical capital, yet corporations and the .1% continue to buy up fiduciaries. And the mainstream pundits remain puzzled. D'oh.
The solution, albeit likely impossible, is for the CxO class of corporations to get their heads out of their asses, where they've been for a decade, and make physical investment in better production. The real return from such investment manifests itself in higher interest rate that is profitable. So, given that the CxO class couldn't find real investment above near 0 interest rate for so many years, what's the chance they'll find Jesus (well, that other guy: 'Jesus saves but Moses invests') now and get inventive? Yeah, you're right; not bloody likely.
Perhaps the canary in the coal mine is Apple, which appears to have run out the clock on its iPhone. Each new version is decreasingly differentiable from the last. And at increasing price, too. The damn asymptote of progress just won't shut up.
In the world of mobile devices, phones particularly, the Next Big Thing is likely the clamshell, full size, variant. It's been mentioned here before that patents and PoCs exist. Whoever pulls it off first will be the winner. And, no, 5G isn't the answer, either. Opposition is significant, and benefit isn't clear. Do communities really want microwave ovens spewing on every light pole in town?
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