US energy sector stocks have reached the lowest point relative to the mean of the S&P 500 market index since the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, as the Financial Times reports. Falling oil and gas prices – caused by a glut of supply and weak demand (affected recently by the COVID-19 coronavirus) – have contributed, with investors generally not seeing the returns they would have expected from their substantial past investments. But there are also other factors at play. BofA Research strategist Tommy Ricketts told the FT that concerns about peak oil demand and “increasing investor focus on the need and costs associated with addressing climate change” are also affecting returns. Another factor touched upon in the article is the inflation of asset prices in general after years of ‘quantitative easing’ – central banks pumping money into economies around the world. The relative weakness of energy stocks to the mean is probably partly due to the mean being inflated.