TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump has broken with many of the norms set by his predecessors, but in few ways has this been clearer than his cheerleading about the roaring stock market…
He has crowed about the stock market at least once a week for the past two months. In two Twitter messages early Tuesday morning, the president cited a 5,000-point rise in the Dow Jones industrial average this year, and then said the market had more room to roar once the impact of tax legislation he is expected to sign this week becomes law…
Even at a speech on national security on Monday [12-18-17], he took a detour to talk again about records being set in the markets. The market performance is now an almost standard part of any address he makes.
The peril for Mr. Trump is that market cycles invariably have downturns, too, sometimes significant ones, and claiming credit for the rise could also mean owning the fall.
Mr. Trump inherited a strong economy from President Barack Obama. The unemployment rate was 4.8 percent in January when he took office and had a solid record of adding private-sector jobs…
Consumer confidence is also on the rise, which helps to add to an overall pro-market investment psychology.”
-Michael Tackett, “Trump Takes Mantle of First Bull as the Stock Market Rises,” The New York Times online, Dec. 19, 2017