US stocks have climbed more than 8% since Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin rang up the PPT in the days before Christmas, but President Trump can’t seem to move past the market turbulence that bled into the first trading days of 2019, despite the fact that stocks have climbed during four of the past five sessions.
While economic data in Europe stoked fears of a recession in the Continent’s largest economy, President Trump once again touted Friday’s blockbuster jobs report, tweeting that “Economic numbers looking REALLY good. Can you imagine if I had long term ZERO interest rates to play with like the past administration, rather than the rapidly raised normalized rates we have today.”
To be sure, in addition to rock-bottom rates, the Obama Administration also had help from $3.8 trillion in QE.
If that were the case, Trump argues, his job (which in his view apparently boils down to maintaining record-high equity prices) would be “SO EASY!”.
And although many analysts are still skeptical about whether we have already seen the bottom from the latest bout of market volatility, Trump took the opportunity to remind America that markets are up “BIG since 2016 Election!”
Economic numbers looking REALLY good. Can you imagine if I had long term ZERO interest rates to play with like the past administration, rather than the rapidly raised normalized rates we have today. That would have been SO EASY! Still, markets up BIG since 2016 Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2019
As if to underscore his point, Trump tweeted that “talks with China are going very well,” eliciting a bump in S&P 500 futures.
Fortunately for Trump, the government shutdown has delayed several economic data releases, including trade data initially slated for release on Tuesday, allowing him to bask in the glow of Friday’s jobs report for a while longer.
via RSS http://bit.ly/2TDaMfW Tyler Durden