April 3, 2018: Speaking of "Fake News..."

 

4/3/18: Speaking of “Fake News,” let’s see how the stock market is doing. If the market is up Trump and loyal Trumpsters claim all credit is due him. When the market was down in the past – for stretches under Obama – it was always the fault of the black guy in the White House. 

 

Not as good as the 32.5% rise under Obama. 

Consider a few Trump tweets: 

Nov 7, 2012: The stock market and US dollar are both plunging today. Welcome to @BarackObama’s second term. 

 

If the market goes up, and you aren’t even president, but you’re a candidate, then all credit to you: 

Jun 28, 2016: @arnold_ziffel: @AnnCoulter also can’t help but notice the stock market’s reaction as @realDonaldTrump was speaking. #UPUPUP

 

Once Trump wins election and has his presidential index finger on the Twitter button, the tweets begin to flow. Trump is a stock market hero! 

Feb 16, 2017: Stock market hits new high with longest winning streak in decades. Great level of confidence and optimism - even before tax plan rollout!

 

Aug 3, 2017: Business is looking better than ever with business enthusiasm at record levels. Stock Market at an all-time high. That doesn’t just happen!

 

Nov 29, 2017: Looks like another great day for the Stock Market. Consumer Confidence is at Record High. I guess somebody likes me (my policies)! 

 

In the next tweet, Trump appears to be quoting a fan, but doesn’t identify who that might be: 

Jan 14, 2018: “President Trump is not getting the credit he deserves for the economy. Tax Cut bonuses to more than 2,000,000 workers. Most explosive Stock Market rally that we’ve seen in modern times. 18,000 to 26,000 from Election, and grounded in profitability and growth. All Trump, not 0...

 

“All Trump, not 0 [sic],” apparently means, any rise in the Dow is due to Trump, whereas Obama never helped the markets at all. 

So, let’s recap. When stocks go up, Trump gets credit. And Obama was terrible for stocks.

 

This is easy to check. The Dow Jones closed at 8,281 on January 16, 2009, the last trading day before Obama took office. By then, the market had plunged nearly six thousand points, from a high in 2007 (14,164). This left Mr. Obama to deal with a real mess, dwarfing the imaginary mess Trump says he inherited. 

The Dow bottomed out at 6,547 in March, having lost more than half its value. 

Under Mr. Obama the market quickly (and thankfully) recovered, ending 2009 at 10,428. That would represent a gain, from Inauguration Day 2009 to New Years’ Eve 2009, of 25.9%. 

By April 5, 2010 (the first trading day after Easter weekend), the Dow stood at 10,974. Starting from Inauguration Day to April Fools’ Day, the market had risen a shade under 32.5%.

 

Of course, conservatives never give Obama credit if they can avoid it. As mentioned, they like to claim that all the gains from the moment Trump was elected should be chalked up to Trump and the “optimism” he brings to the market. Suppose a gracious liberal (such as this blogger) gives Trump and Trump fans that break – credits our current president with all gains from November 8, 2016, when the market closed at 18,333 – and computes stock increases from that point. 

The Dow finished today at 24,033. 

That means the market is up 31.1%, giving Trump the best starting point and more than three extra months to pump up the gains. 

It’s not as good as the 32.5% rise under Obama, to the same point in his first term, but it’s good.

 

* 

THE PRESIDENT of the United States continues his assault on the First Amendment. He starts this day at 5:38 a.m., tweet-bitching again:  

The Fake News Networks, those that knowingly have a sick and biased AGENDA, are worried about the competition and quality of Sinclair Broadcast. The “Fakers” at CNN, NBC, ABC & CBS have done so much dishonest reporting that they should only be allowed to get awards for fiction! 

 

Trump caps his attacks during a press conference with leaders of three Baltic republics later the same day. Keep in mind: Those three nations spent fifty years under the iron hand of the Soviet Union. In that half century their people never enjoyed a single day of press freedom. 

Once again, the President of the United States mocks the American free press, telling the president of Latvia to pick a “Baltic reporter” to ask a question. 

“Pick a reporter, please,” Trump says to Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis. “A Baltic reporter ideally. Real news, not fake news.”

March 28, 2019: Trump Makes Up Numbers Again - the Stock Market

 

3/28/19: Time to check on the stock market again to see what magic President Trump has wrought. Okay. The Dow is up a bit today, closing at 25,717. That means, since the market closed at 19,804 on January 19, 2017, President Obama’s last full day in office, the Dow Jones is up 29.9%. 

____________________ 

“The Stock Market would be down at least 10,000 points by now.” 

President Trump

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By comparison, that Kenyan guy (who wasn’t really a Kenyan guy, which Trump had only just admitted, before taking over the White House his orange self) had done all the damage to our economy he could. The day Obama took over, with the market in a catastrophic slide, the Dow stood at 8,281. It was still sliding and would drop to 6,547 by March 9, 2009, before bottoming out. Then Commie Obama (who wasn’t a commie) or Muslim Obama (not a Muslim) took charge. By March 28, 2011, the Dow had risen to 12,220, for a gain of 47.6%. 

With that number in mind, let’s stop a moment and consider a presidential tweet from February 20. According to President Twitter Thumbs, had Democrats won the 2016 election, “the Stock Market would be down at least 10,000 points by now.”

 

You could look this up if you had slightly more intellectual curiosity than the average Halloween pumpkin. Donald J. Trump does not. Looking at the last seventeen presidents, going back to 1929, we see that when Herbert Hoover (a Republican) was in office the market dived 82.1 percent. Richard M. Nixon was second worst, with the market falling 28.3 percent. Plus, he got impeached. George W. Bush was third worst, with a plunge of 26.5%. 

The worst Democratic president, in terms of market performance, was Jimmy Carter, who saw the Dow stagnate and drop 0.7 percent. Since 1929, every other Democrat registered gains: John F. Kennedy (15.8%), Lyndon B. Johnson (26.1%) and Harry Truman (75.2%). Three of the top four performers, if we’re going to let presidents claim credit for market gains, would be Obama (by the end of his second term: 148.3%), Franklin D. Roosevelt (198.6%) and Bill Clinton (228.9%). 

Plus, Bill got impeached.

 

Calvin Coolidge, a Republican, finished first, with the market exploding to a gain of 230.5% during his time in office. 

Or course, he got lucky and left office on March 4, 1929, with the Great Crash a few months down the road.

Best stock returns ever: Calvin Coolidge.
He got out just in time to miss the Great Crash of 1929.

October 1, 2019: Trump Brags about Stock Market Gains - Obama Did Better

 

October 1, 2019: A new report shows U.S. manufacturing output has slipped to the lowest level since June 2009. 

The Dow Jones drops 344 points on the news.

Yeah - the Dow Jones went way up.

 

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Obama vs. Trump: The tale of the ticker tape.

____________________

 

 

Since Mr. Trump looks at stock market numbers as the ultimate gauge of success, any decline sets his teeth on edge. That means tweeting. And tweeting means stupidity for sure. “You cannot judge my Stock Market performance since the Inauguration,” he insists, “which was very good, but only from the day after the big Election Win, which was spectacular due to the euphoria of getting Obama/Biden OUT, & getting Trump/Pence IN. Went up BIG between Nov. 9 & Inauguration!” 

We have addressed this claim before, due to the fact that Trump continues to misstate basic facts (sometimes known as practicing “Trump Math”). Sadly, his silly supporters believe him every time. 

A person grounded in reality can easily check this out. Starting from the moment Mr. Obama sat down in the White House and ending on January 16, 2017, the last trading day before the end of his second term, the Dow rose 148.3 percent. That would allow Obama to edge out Ronald Reagan, for third best stock market performance under any U.S. president in the last century (not counting Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had nearly twice as long to oversee gains). 

Second place would go to Hillary Clinton’s husband, the philandering fool, William Jefferson Clinton.

 

The gold medal would be draped round the neck of Calvin Coolidge, a staunch Republican of the old, small-government, balanced budget, conservative stripe. You’d probably want to rip it right off, since a few months after he left office the Great Crash of 1929 sent the economy into a tailspin. 

The Great Depression then commenced. 

More recently, Trump and his enablers and the Republican Party, generally, would like you to forget. With George W. Bush steering the ship of state, the markets first boomed. Then busted. The Dow Jones hit 14,165 on October 11, 2007. Then the U.S. economy ran into a hidden reef and started to sink. A massive housing bubble burst. Banks wobbled and went under. Wall Street giants teetered on the edge of ruin. Consumer spending contracted. Auto sales plummeted. By the time Obama was sworn in, the Dow had shed nearly six thousand points.

 

On January 16, 2009, the last trading day before he took over, the Dow stood at 8,291. The skid continued for two more months. On March 9, the market bottomed at 6,547. Or, as Warren Buffett put it, the economy had “fallen off a cliff.” Investors had lost $13 trillion, or 59.9 percent of their money. 

It is true, then, that markets have done nicely under Trump. This blogger, who is heavily invested, is happy about that. 

The markets did better – to this point in Obama’s first term than they have under Trump. 

Frankly, Trump makes this kind of, “the markets were going to crash if Hillary won the election” stuff up. (See: 2/7/20.)

 

I’m a big fan of facts. So, I go to the charts. I’m not turning up an exact figure for October 1, 2011, but based on a comparison chart prepared by macrotrends, by early October in 2011, the Dow Jones was up 49.4 percent with Obama running the show. 

At the same point in his first term in the White House, Trump has the markets up 36.2 percent.