Nasdaq closes above 9,000 for the first time
Will 2020 bring even more stock market gains? Insight from Agora Financial editor Alan Knuckman.
The only thing that rivals President Trump’s tally of kept promises is the endless list of inaccurate predictions his critics have made about the U.S. economy.
Of course, we heard these apocryphal predictions even before Donald Trump won the 2016 election. For instance, in October 2016, the far-left publication Politico boldly declared that “Wall Street is set up for a major crash if Donald Trump shocks the world on Election Day and wins the White House.”
The ability of Trump’s critics to predict our economic future hasn’t improved with age. Throughout 2019, numerous so-called “economists” and “experts” have taken a swing at the president's economic policies, warning Americans that the next stock market crash was right around the corner.
In January, the uber-liberal Huffington Post published a typically baseless piece titled “4 Signs Another Recession Is Coming ― And What It Means For You.” Vox published a similar fear-mongering prediction over the summer, arguing that Wall Street “is at a point where it can’t — or won’t — ignore President Donald Trump’s trade antics and Twitter tirades like it used to.”
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And who could forget some of the most recent warnings that slam Trump’s trade policy, such as Investor’s Business Daily’s headline: “Stock Market Reaction To Tariffs: Wall Street Has Seen This Before; The End Is Not Good.”
Despite the doom and gloom, as 2019 came to an end, the president inched ever-closer to a revolutionary trade deal with China, completing negotiations on what has been called phase one of that agreement. The Trump administration also successfully campaigned to get the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement approved by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, further instilling confidence and optimism in entrepreneurs that the ongoing economic renaissance is here to stay.
The Democrats love to make predictions about President Trump’s policies, but they don’t seem to learn from their own mistakes.
Not surprisingly (unless you suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome), investors responded. The S&P 500 finished 2019 up 29 percent, its best year since 2013. The Nasdaq finished the year up 35 percent, shattering the 9,000 level for the first time in history. The Dow’s listing of blue-chip stocks rose an impressive 22 percent. These results leave little doubt that investors are fully confident in the U.S. economy – despite the droning criticism from the Left.
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In fact, under Trump, the benchmark S&P 500 has already returned over 50 percent and is performing well above the average under past administrations.
These returns aren’t just for the millionaires and billionaires you heard so much about if you listened to the millionaires and billionaires who participated in the Democratic presidential debates describe how they would tank the economy – for our own good. Rather, according to Gallup, about 55 percent of American workers own stocks either individually or through mutual funds or retirement savings accounts, like a 401(k) or an IRA. They have all been positively impacted by stock market growth under Trump and I can guarantee you they noticed. That’s a lot of voters.
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No wonder Democrats have so aggressively pursued an obviously futile attempt to remove the president from office. At this point, it's all they’ve got – and it isn’t much.
The Democrats love to make predictions about President Trump’s policies, but they don’t seem to learn from their own mistakes. As Trump said in response to the latest stock market surge, “With new trade deals, and more, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”