Tag: dow jones
President Joe Biden

Trump Predicted Slump Under Biden — But Markets And Jobs Are Surging

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Donald Trump often said ahead of the 2020 election that if Joe Biden were elected, gains in the stock market would be destroyed.

"If he is elected, the stock market will crash," Trump said in a presidential debate on October 22, 2020, one of dozens of times he made the claim during the campaign, according to transcripts gathered by Factbase.

Yet 72 days into Biden's first term as president, the stock market has not only gone up, but it has set multiple records, including on Thursday, when the S&P 500 surpassed 4,000 for the first time in history.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has also broken records multiple times since Biden was elected, beginning with the day Biden was sworn in. Since then, the Dow has surpassed 33,000 for the first time in history.

CNN reported in January that since Biden was elected in November, the stock market has had the "best post-election market performance for a new president in modern history."

The latest stock market surge follows the announcement of Biden's new infrastructure plan, which could be behind the record stock market performance. Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure plan would modernize the country's roads, bridges, and airports, as well as focus on modernizing infrastructure to help battle climate change.

The stock market news also comes as the vaccine rollout accelerates, and after Biden successfully pushed through a coronavirus relief package in March to help aid the economic recovery effort — without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate.

Experts predicted the relief package would bring "an almost immediate boost to the U.S. economy," the New York Times reported, with $1,400 checks and a $300 weekly increase to unemployment insurance likely to increase consumer spending as parts of the economy most hard-hit by the virus, including hospitality and tourism, began to show signs of life again with increased vaccinations.

On Friday, those predictions were bolstered when the Department of Labor announced that employers created a massive 916,000 jobs in March, including more than 200,000 jobs at restaurants, bars, and hotels. That's even more than the 675,000 jobs predicted in a survey done by Dow Jones last month, according to CNBC.

Stock market futures continued to rise Friday morning.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Democrats Should Be Bragging About The Markets

Democrats Should Be Bragging About The Markets

On March 11, President Joe Biden gave a White House address touting his administration's response to the COVID-19 crisis. As it happened, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at another record high the day before. But about that Biden said not a word.

Had Donald Trump still been president, the stock market would have almost certainly topped his list of glorious achievements. We'd hear popping talk about how our 401(k)s are sizzling and how he is the reason. Sample tweet from August 2017: "Stock market at an all-time high. That doesn't just happen!"

No, Biden last week spoke of "a collective suffering, a collective sacrifice, a year filled with the loss of life and the loss of living for all of us." He spent a good deal of time on the anguish, but then he moved, happily, to his administration's successes — boosting production of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, recruiting armies to give the shots, getting the vaccines into pharmacies.

It was a relief to hear a Democratic president bragging out loud about his accomplishments. But the message must move away from pain to prosperity. Biden has started on that path by touting the massive COVID relief bill that's sending checks to an overwhelmingly supportive public. His self-praise should expand to the stock market.

Democrats seem especially reluctant to use the stock market as a measure of their economic prowess. Under Barack Obama, the Dow hit record highs 118 times. Do you remember him ever talking about it?

Biden was basically right when he said, "Where I come from in Scranton and Claymont, the people don't live off of the stock market."

It's true that the wealthiest ten percent of American families own 84 percent of Wall Street portfolios' value. The bottom 50 percent — that's half of American families — possess none or almost no equities. Last year, gains in the S&P 500 added an estimated $4 trillion to American portfolios, but $3.4 trillion of it went to the top ten percent.

Many Americans don't understand that reality, as Trump knew well. Those in the middle who own a few shares, perhaps in their retirement accounts, do feel tied to movements in stock prices. Never mind that in 2019, the median portfolio size for households in this group was only $13,000.

Non-investors, meanwhile, often associate a booming stock market with a good economy, even if they themselves are hurting.

It's odd how Democrats shy away from taking credit for bubbling markets, when, in recent decades, stock returns have done better under their presidents than Republican ones, Trump included. The Dow posted an annualized return of almost 11.8 percent under Trump, according to MarketWatch. That was good but short of Obama's 12.1 percent. And it was nowhere near Bill Clinton's 15.9 percent.

As MarketWatch also noted, even Clinton's numbers were blown away by the 25.5 percent annualized rise under Calvin Coolidge, a Republican. Of course, Coolidge had the Roaring '20s blowing wind in his economy's sails.

We're now in the 2020s. Many economists are predicting that with the virus in retreat, the economy will roar once again. The Financial Times cites such prods as pent-up demand, government spending, and savings by the locked-down Americans who kept their jobs but had few places to spend money.

The stock market is off to a hot start in Biden's first year. We won't miss tweets like Trump's "Dow hit a new intraday all-time high! I wonder whether or not the Fake News Media will so report?"

But Democrats would be wise to at least applaud politely when stock markets sing of a new age of abundance now that they're in charge.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com

Better Times Are Coming, For Those Who Hang On (And Mask Up)

Better Times Are Coming, For Those Who Hang On (And Mask Up)

The Dow crossed 30,000 for the first time, and three promising vaccines are on the way. These are not unrelated events. Also boosting investor optimism was Trump world's decision to finally start the transition to a Joe Biden presidency and Biden's naming of Janet Yellen as his treasury secretary.

And the good news keeps coming — if you look for it. We will probably be seeing more spectacular Christmas decorations this year as virus-stranded Americans use their extra time to do up their homes. Expect lots of 6-foot snowmen and flotillas of glowing flamingos.

Read NowShow less
dow jones

Dow Surges Past 30,000 As Investors Celebrate Biden’s Rise, Trump’s Demise

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

In anticipation of Donald Trump's now-certain ouster, the Dow Jones surged past 30,000 during trading on Tuesday for the first time ever. The headlines are already precious.

"Wall St. trades in record territory as Biden transition begins," declaredThe New York Times.

Read NowShow less