The Dow’s march onward and upward toward 30,000 continues without a pause. New all-time highs are notched practically every day. Despite Thursday’s 31-point pullback, the Dow is up over 15.5 percent year-to-date. What a remarkable time to be alive.
The DJIA keeps surging… but it is running on fumes (US money supply growth is disappearing rapidly). The president loves this and has decided to “own” the market by gushing about its record run. During his campaign he professed to worry about the “giant bubble”. We happen to think that it is probably best for a president not to talk about the stock market at all, but the Donald evidently couldn’t resist. One thing that continues to be quite satisfying is this quote by Paul Krugman on election night, when stock market futures plunged after it became clear that the Donald would beat Hillary:
“It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. […]I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”
Krugman’s predictions are often devastatingly wrong, but rarely this fast.
President Donald Trump is pumped. As Commander in Chief, he believes he possesses divine powers. He can will the stock market higher – and he knows it. For example, early Wednesday morning he blasted out the following Tweet:
“Stock Market has increased by 5.2 Trillion dollars since the election on November 8th, a 25% increase.”
Four minutes later, he sent out another Tweet:
“…if Congress gives us the massive tax cuts (and reform) I am asking for, those numbers will grow by leaps and bounds.”
Who knows? Maybe President Trump is right. These days even bad reforms – and just about everything else – are good for stocks. And what’s good for stocks is good for everything.
For instance, according to President Trump stock market gains reduce the national debt. He even said so this week. President Trump’s logic for how higher stock prices reduce the national debt was unclear. But it certainly sounds good to say. More importantly, it sounds bullish.
