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Since leaving office in 2021, Donald Trump has not been shy about discussing the stock market, and his rhetoric has changed dramatically depending on the ups and downs of Wall Street.
He continued to take credit for the congregation even after he left Washington. He likened the 2022 recession to the Great Depression. He downplayed recovery. And he’s now back to reclaiming his credit (while also predicting a crash).
In total, there are at least five different ways in which Mr. Trump has talked about Wall Street’s performance in the 37 months since Mr. Biden took office, according to an analysis of his comments by Yahoo Finance. It is said that there are stages.
The analysis shows that what Mr. Trump says on any given day could be the exact opposite of what he said months or even weeks ago.
But his continued focus on the issue suggests a campaign season in which market volatility could be a frequent topic of discussion, especially after President Joe Biden. . Recently boasted about the high price of the market. After years of avoiding the topic.
“If he wins, the stock market will crash,” Trump said on the debate stage in 2020, pointing at Biden.
Of course it wasn’t. Far from it.
Here’s how President Trump has revised and expanded on his remarks since then.
Stage 1: Take credit for the market rally in 2021
On January 19, 2021, just before Mr. Biden was sworn into office, the S&P 500 Index (^GSPC) closed at 3,798.91. The market will spend most of the rest of the year on the upswing, with the index ending 2021 at 4,766.18, up more than 25%.
President Trump’s predictions of a crash clearly didn’t come true, so the current president instead chose to continue taking the credit.
After leaving office for more than a month, Trump still talked about “our stock market” in a February 2021 speech.
“Your 401(k)s are once again at record levels, in fact higher than ever before,” he told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
President Trump has also often said that he doesn’t get enough credit for the stock market recovery at the end of 2020 after falling during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a theme he has repeated countless times to this day. was making a point.
“Ultimately, the stock price went up because we did something great,” he said in a Fox News town hall just last month.
Stages 2 and 3: Blaming Biden and Downplaying the Rebound as Markets Turn South
2022 and 2023 were even more challenging for the market.
The S&P 500 Index closed at an all-time high of 4,796.56 on January 3, 2022. This is the highest level that has not been broken in more than two years, during which time President Trump has pivoted to criticize Biden.
“We are a failed nation,” he told a crowd of Ohioans in November 2022, pointing to the stock market decline as key evidence.
“Do any of you have a 401(k)? Raise your hand if you’re happy with it,” he added in front of a crowd in Iowa in March 2023. “Let me tell you this: When I was running this country, they were happy.”
He also extended credence by comparing 2022, when the market fell 18%, to the crash that began in 1929, when stocks lost 90% of their value between 1929 and 1932.
The good news for investors (and Biden) was that the market quickly recovered and posted strong gains throughout 2023. By the end of the year, it began to break all-time records.
This led to a brief and very un-Trump-like phase in which the former president tried to downplay the stock market as an important indicator.
“The stock market is making the rich richer,” he said in Durham, New Hampshire, in December, just after the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) hit a new all-time high, topping $37,000 for the first time. he told the audience in dissatisfaction.
He made similar comments the next day in Reno, accusing Biden of overseeing an economy that was “collapsing into a cesspool.”
Stages 4 and 5: Taking credit and predicting the crash (again)
But once Trump started winning primaries early this year, he reversed course again.
He took advantage of market highs in January that coincided with wins in Iowa and New Hampshire.
He claimed, without evidence, that the high prices were due to his victory and the growing likelihood of a second Trump administration.
“As soon as it became clear on election night that we had defeated crooked Joe Biden, our 401(k) approval ratings went up,” Trump told a New Hampshire crowd the day after winning the Iowa caucuses. “You’re going to see it spike, and you’re already seeing it.” He argued that prices rise “every time we have a positive poll result or we have a night like last night.”
But on January 16, the day after Trump won Iowa, stocks actually fell. Other issues focused on the day’s trading, including bad news from Boeing Co. (BA), which sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 230 points. On this day, the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (^IXIC) also fell.
Meanwhile, Trump-related stocks such as Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC) rose on the day.
Now that Trump has settled into the role of likely Republican nominee, his rhetoric has shifted again. This is called stage 5. He returned to his claim that Biden’s election would cause economic collapse.
Mr. Trump’s rallies often end with the former president delivering a speech in dramatic tones, accompanied by a high-pitched orchestral song. The latest addition to that climactic routine is a new mention of stocks.
“We are a country where the continued success of the stock market depends on MAGA winning the next election,” he told a crowd in New Hampshire in January as music swelled.
The peripatetic nature of Trump’s comments was underscored a few weeks later in South Carolina when he returned to his old favorite, the Great Depression.
“If we don’t win the next election, the stock market will crash like it did in 1929,” he said.
Ben Werschkul is Yahoo Finance’s Washington correspondent.
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