The Trump stock market rally has been derided by everyone from the #NeverTrump crowd to financial journalists around the country.
- “It’s show me time for President Donald Trump,” declared USA Today in an opinion piece.
- “Wall Street should be nervous watching Trump's speech to Congress,” read a Business Insider headline.
- “Could Trump's Speech To Congress 'Make Or Break' Dow's Stock Market Rally?” writes Forbes, in an irritatingly careful, but nonetheless skeptical op-ed.
Markets pooh-poohed all of those theories yesterday. The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 hit all-time highs. In fact, since Election Day (and even with today’s modest pullback) the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 are up 15.3%, 13.7% and 11.9% respectively.
Undergirding the all-time closing highs is robust U.S. economic data. Just this week U.S. Consumer Confidence hit 15-year highs as American businesses painted a decidedly sanguine economic outlook.
Here’s the business outlook breakdown via the ISM Manufacturing index:
- ISM Manufacturing: 57.7 (31 month high)
- New Orders: 65.1 (39 month high)
- Backlog of Orders: 57 (three year high)
“I don’t care if a raccoon is President,” Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough said recently. “U.S. economic data is accelerating.”
Moral of the story? Leave partisan politics out of your portfolio positioning.
