Since he won the presidency, Donald Trump has become the stock market’s biggest cheerleader.
As markets climbed at the end of 2016 and throughout 2017, the president promoted a string of new milestones or records. He explicitly tied the rally to his policies and optimism about the economy’s prospects during his administration.
Presidents have typically tried to limit talk about stock market success, as equities can just as easily slide. But Trump has embraced the stock market run since Election Day 2016, tweeting about stocks at least 60 times and highlighting markets during numerous public appearances.
In trading Friday and Monday, stocks hit their first major roadblock since Trump’s election on Nov. 8, 2016. On Monday, amid the worst percentage declines for the Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 since 2011, Trump notably omitted the stock market as he rattled off a list of what he called his economic achievements during a speech in Ohio.
Stocks tried to recover their losses in rocky trading Tuesday following the two-day drubbing. They traded around flat during the afternoon.
Trump appears set to use stock markets — which also rose steadily under his predecessor, Barack Obama, after a thumping during the Great Recession — as a selling point during this year’s midterm elections and his re-election campaign in 2020. Since Nov. 8, 2016, the Dow and S&P have climbed about 30 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
Obama also promoted stocks during his re-election bid in 2012, although much more sparingly than Trump did during the first year of his presidency. In October 2012, one of Obama’s verified Twitter accounts tweeted a quote from a campaign stop in New Hampshire, in which he said “the stock market has nearly doubled” since he took office.
Here are some of Trump’s tweets about the stock market since he won the 2016 election:
Dec. 26, 2016: Trump’s first attempt to take credit for stock market gains came within two months of his election. The then-president elect said the world was “gloomy” and had “no hope” before he got elected president.
“Now, the market is up nearly 10%,” he wrote.
Feb. 16, 2017: In his first tweeted mention of stocks since his inauguration, the president trumpeted a “new high” for the market and a “great level of confidence and optimism” — “even before” the GOP passed its tax plan into law last year.
July 15, 2017: Throughout last year, Trump repeatedly touted stocks when policy victories eluded him, or stories about the probe into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election were prominent on cable news or in newspapers. In July, he tweeted that the stock market “hit another all-time high yesterday — despite the Russian hoax story!”
Nov. 7, 2017: In November, Trump explicitly linked a stock market record to his administration’s policies.
“There is great confidence in the moves that my Administration is making,” he wrote.
Dec. 31, 2017: At the end of last year, Trump claimed that stocks would have fallen 50 percent from their election day values if his rival Hillary Clinton got elected.
“Now they have a great future — and just beginning!” he added.
Jan. 5: Early this year, Trump claimed that a rapid rise in the Dow is “all about the Make America Great Again agenda!”
