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Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

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161–170 of 214 posts

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#161

Trump for all his craziness is vehemently pro business. I know the whole tech crowd wants him to crash and burn but the stock market rising is no surprise to me. Whether it's worth the damage done to the poor and the environment is yet to be seen.

As a business owner, of a large multi-national company heavily invested in various non-physical IP-heavy "product", say, Disney, wouldn't Trump's move to pull the US out of the TPP not make me shit my pants with fear for the future?

One of the key provisions of the TPP was to force Asian countries to adhere to strict US copyright laws. And that makes sense, since IP companies' products are what the US really exports on makes money on - nobody is buying US fridges and ovens in large quantities. And if you can't get China to respect IP laws, then you have no future there.

Maybe I'm completely confused about the TPP, but I'm frankly pretty surprised the market's reaction so far has been one giant "meh".

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#162
post #13

Remember when nearly the entire business media predicted that if Trump was elected the stock market would crash immediately? Some of my smartest friends (at hedge funds) placed large bets mid to late 2016 that the market would decline. Now here we are. The lesson isn't that Trump is awesome for the economy (maybe he is, maybe he isn't) or that the market won't crash tomorrow (maybe it will, maybe it won't) but rather…

To be fair, historically at all presidents changing, markets get volatile and usually dip a bit mainly based on the uncertainty. Change typically leads to volatility in the markets so it wasn't a bad move to bet on it.

The market has been in a steady climb for 8ish years and had been sideways for nearly a decade before due to the internet bubble and mortgage/housing/banking based Great Recession from 2008, so it was more robust on a bounce off that massive dip. Trump inherited a very low volatile market.

Flipside is Trump is coming in on record highs, other presidents come in on lower than highs usually due to the change/uncertainty, may lead to a lower total increase over 4/8 years. The last two presidents came in on huge dips/volatile markets, internet bubble busting and housing bubble/fraud in 2006-8 leading to Great Recession while wages stagnated the whole time. This market still has fuel in it as it is still bouncing from those.

I am sure we will see some dips coming from the interest rates going up. No policies or interest rate changes have happened just yet to stop the bull.

Side note, typically Republican presidents have a lower overall performance on the markets[1].

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlazaroff/2016/07/26/democra...

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All in all, I'd like to hear what others think I think that "command and control" and "free market" economies are the extremes of the spectrum, neither optimal, with lots of room in between. Trump has talked a lot, but we don't know where he will actually fall, policy-wise. It's not out of the question he implements economically beneficial policies. We should judge what he does, not what he says.

He did pull the US out of the TPP. And I'm confused why they did not affect the market like I thought it would. Did the US just not hand over all its influence in Asia to China by doing that ??

Because the market new it was coming? I don't think it was expected to boost trade that much anyway.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#164
post #134
post #71

I understand that people believe Trump is good for business. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the rich. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the blue-collar worker. But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market, when looking at his positions and policy changes. Why Trump isn't good for poor working class…

I'm sorry that I don't have the time to respond to all of your assertions, but I have done a reasonable amount of research on one of the points and figured I'd add my $0.02. > Why Trump isn't good for poor working class America - Assuming there's a large tax on every good coming into the country, then the cost of groceries will increase dramatically. The United States is a net exporter of agricultural goods[1], where…

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Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#165
post #71

I understand that people believe Trump is good for business. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the rich. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the blue-collar worker. But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market, when looking at his positions and policy changes. Why Trump isn't good for poor working class…

What makes you think "trump" is the stock market? The graves of investors have been dug with political shovels.

"The graves of investors have been dug with political shovels." awesome quote! hadn't heard that one before. reminds me of the old 'the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent' line.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#166
post #138
post #71

I understand that people believe Trump is good for business. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the rich. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the blue-collar worker. But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market, when looking at his positions and policy changes. Why Trump isn't good for poor working class…

For an indicator, look at what Silvio Berlusconi did for Italy: pretty much nothing. The country stagnated while he was in power, mostly looking after his own interests. He accomplished little in a country that really does need some "market friendly" reforms. Also, be wary of the difference between being pro-business and pro-market: https://promarket.org/donald-trumps-economic-policy-pro-busi...

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Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#168
post #71

I understand that people believe Trump is good for business. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the rich. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the blue-collar worker. But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market, when looking at his positions and policy changes. Why Trump isn't good for poor working class…

> But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market

By reducing the corporate tax rate, he is on a path to ending double taxation.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#169
post #58

Listen to this episode of Planet money in 2013: Despite all the celebration, the Dow Jones industrial average has not hit record highs recently. If you adjust for inflation, the highs just aren't as high as they seem. And even if it does hit a real, inflation-adjusted high in the next few weeks, it won't mean much. The Dow is a seriously flawed stock index, and it's certainly not a good way to measure what's going on…

It makes no sense to inflation adjust the DJIA price index. Because the index discards cash dividends, by adjusting for inflation but not dividends you're ending up even further from the real returns of a DJIA portfolio then you were before. The same goes for S&P 500.

A better and more meaningful question than whether the Dow is at an all-time high is whether the US economy is at its all-time largest.

And it is. It usually is, in fact, and when it's not it means things are going very badly.

But hey, nobody thinks Dow 20000 is anything but an arbitrary milestone. I don't know why people want to shit on it like people standing around at NYE parties loudly pointing out the arbitrariness of the celebration.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#170

There's no real evidence that the President has much of an influence on the economy.

I agree 100%, but for as long as I can remember, presidents have received credit for the state of affairs on their watch, and used that as talking points while campaigning.
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