Former President Donald Trump finishes a press conference at 40 Wall Street in New York City on January 17, 2024. President Trump held a press conference after the second day of the defamation trial involving E. Jean Carroll.
Alexi J. Rosenfeld | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump acknowledged Monday that the stock market is rising under his successor, President Joe Biden, but he still sought to take credit for it.
“This is Trump’s stock market,” President Trump claimed on social media in all caps Truth. post“My polling for Biden is so good that investors expect me to win and that will push the market up.”
President Trump said there is no evidence to support his claim that investors are currently buying into the stock market in hopes that the former Republican president will defeat the Democratic incumbent in an election about 10 months away.
Trump’s press secretary did not immediately respond to a question about whether he could provide sources to support Trump’s claims.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to $38,000 for the first time on January 22, marking a 1,000-point gain in just 40 days. The S&P 500 hit an all-time high on January 19th, confirming a new bull market.
In the same post, President Trump wrote, “Everything else is terrible (watch out Middle East!) and record inflation is already taking its toll. Make America great again!!!”
National polls tend to show a close race between Trump and Biden, but recent surveys, such as one conducted last week, Reuters/Ipsosshowing Trump leading by several points.
Trump, who left the White House after losing to Biden in 2020, is now the clear front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Before the 2020 election, Trump claimed that the stock market would collapse if Biden became president. And earlier this month, President Trump made much the same claims about the 2024 election.
“If I don’t win, I think there’s going to be a crash,” President Trump said at a Fox News town hall event on January 10.
But the Biden-induced crash that Trump had predicted never arrived. And the U.S. economy avoided a deep recession in 2023, despite widespread predictions that a recession would be triggered by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes to stem runaway inflation.
Some economic experts are now considering the possibility that the economy is doing so well that even a “soft landing” scenario can be avoided. The bright outlook comes after a number of positive economic developments.
The latest jobs report showed employment rose sharply in December and profits beat expectations, while the unemployment rate remained low.
Gross domestic product (GDP), the main indicator of economic growth, grew by 3.3% in the last three months of 2023, much faster than expected.
Inflation, which has dogged Biden’s entire term and depressed poll numbers, is showing signs of slowing further, although prices remain high.
